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A trailer was burned to the ground north of Ochre River.
The Ochre River Fire Department responded to the home around 1 in the afternoon yesterday and stayed until around 8 in the evening.
When they arrived, the entire building was fully engulfed in flames.
The fire department determent that a baseboard heater was probably the cause of the fire.
No one was home at the time of the fire.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The Farm Products Council of Canada has started the public hearing process to figure out the benefits of a hemp Promotion and Research Agency.
Having the hemp PRA would allow hemp growers to be involved in the advancement of the industry while helping them with research and promotion as well.
The biggest reason for getting a national agency is that hemp is a small acreage crop.
If there were 3 or 4 provincial agencies funds would get eaten up by administration costs.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
The final crop report from Manitoba Agriculture is out, and despite all of the challenges this year, most harvests are 98 to 100 per cent complete.
The only crop harvests outside of that range are the Sunflower harvest at 80 per cent complete, and the Grain Corn harvest at 61 per cent complete. The total amount of seeded acres across the province for Canola is 3,258,323, and for Soybeans is 1,892,391.
In the Northwest region of the province, Hard Red Spring Wheat yields have averaged around 65 to 85 bushels an acre, and Canola yields averaged around 50 to 60 bushels an acre.
See the full seasonal summary crop report here
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- Contributed by Alec Woolston
Intermountain Conservation and Turtle River Watershed Districts are being forced to come together.
Intermountain currently covers seven municipalities, and the merger area will cover around 15.
Jeff Thiele, the manager of Intermountain, says both are set up differently, and this is a concern as they come together.
“We’re going to have to get together and figure out how they are going to run one district that have two different mandates sort of thing, and how they are going to do all that. Because Turtle River is still going to have infrastructure to deal with. So how are they going to deal with that?”
Turtle River deal is an infrastructure district that deals with things like culverts and ditches while Intermountain focuses mostly on conservation projects.
“It doesn’t look like Intermountain is going to have to deal with the infrastructure, our way. So that will remain the same. Is Turtle River going to be able to do some of the conservation programming that we currently do in Intermountain?”
The province is forcing a merger in 2020, and they want a draft plan by this upcoming March.
Right now the province is saying the districts won’t get any extra money and stay at the current budget they are at right now.
Thiele says he knows it’s going to be a big job while planning for the future while also keeping their current projects going. But he thinks it can be done. It’ll just require a lot of work and communication.
(source: Turtle River Watershed Conservation District Facebook)
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
About 80 customers in Gilbert Plains lost natural gas service because of a leaking valve in the supply line.
The leak occurred early last night. The valve is now repaired and Manitoba Hydro service personnel have started the process of going door to door to assist affected customers with relighting any pilot lights on furnaces, hot water tanks, etc.
They will get to the remaining effected customers this morning.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Main Street South In Dauphin, between 7th ave and 8th ave, will be closed starting this morning.
The City of Dauphin is closing the street at 7:00 to install a water and sewer service.
They say it will stay closed till sometime late in the afternoon tomorrow.
The city asks that you be prepared to detour.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
A two-vehicle accident occurred on Main Street by 7-11 and Parkland Source for Sports earlier this afternoon.
We've reached out to the RCMP to find out all the details of what happened.
CKDM will have an update when more information becomes available.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
There’s a structure fire on Highway 20A just north of Ochre River.
Emergency crews are currently on scene putting out the fire.
CKDM is reaching out to emergency services to get details.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
A rotating strike by Canada Post employees is causing disruptions for mail delivery in Dauphin.
Carrie Brook, President of Dauphin-Swan River Local 722, hopes the strike and the disputes behind the strikes get resolved quickly.
“Brandon and Winnipeg are on the rotating strike as of today. so as of right now, there is very limited mail that is actually being distributed. So the movement is still there, but right now there is a little bit of disruption as there has been for the last two weeks across Canada since the start of the rotations.”
“As an employee, as a person that does this job, we don’t want to be on strike, we don’t want to have to do these things. But when you need to fight for the rights you are entitled to that are stipulated in labour code and otherwise that it’s important that we stand up for ourselves.”
The movement of mail is still there but it’s limited as much as it can be and limit the hurt on Canadians.
“This is where we stand up for ourselves, and the hope is that we don’t have to have a full strike, that’s not what the hope is. But we’ll see.”
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
The RM of Dauphin is requesting a rate increase for their rural water system.
A rate study is mandated by the Public Utilities Board to make sure the system is self-sufficient.
Chief Administrative Officer Nicole Chychota explains why they are adjusting the rates higher.
“What happened when they looked at what we had for the past two years was that for the past two years we had been incurring deficits because there was not a lot of water being used by the ratepayers. So when that happens the rates have to be adjusted to make sure we can cover the deficit that was incurred previously and make sure that we don’t have another one in the future.”
The Utility incurred an audited deficit of $1,602 in 2016, an unaudited deficit $143,455 in 2017 and anticipates a deficit for this year.
The initial proposed water rates calculated by the RM were based on a projected average quarterly water consumption of 90.92 cubic meters or 20,000 gallons per customer. The actual average quarterly water consumption from April 2017 to March 2018 was 26.36 cubic meters or 5,800 gallons per customer.
She says the board requires the utility to be financially self-efficient.
“The utility system in the RM of Dauphin is fairly small, small number of ratepayers I suppose, we have a large area that is being serviced. It’s only about 206 customers that are going to be set up after our phase two is completed here this fall.”
“So what happens is that when we first set it up the Water Services Boars, are the experts, who helped determine what the water rates are going to be based on what they expect would be normal water consumption. So over the last two years, they found that the water usage per household has just been a lot less than what was anticipated, which is why we incurred the deficit.”
The current rates are set at a minimum quarterly charge of $76.25 and they are requesting a minimum quarterly charge of $123.05.
Chychota says, for the most part, the quarterly minimum went up by about 50 dollars and that most customers will be minimally impacted.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
Thousands of visitors attended this year’s Manitoba Ag Ex in Brandon.
There was close to 1300 head of livestock through the Keystone Centre during the four-day event.
Ross Jermey, owner of Spruce Ridge Stock Farms in Ashern, was at the show, he says business was good.
“We go to quite a few shows in the course of a year and this show here has been one of the better shows, in terms of spectators through the barns. We’ve had read cattle people coming through the barns and looking at the cattle. We’ve actually been able to do quite a bit of business here in the stalls."
Manitoba Ag Ex Co-Chair Dallas Johnson says that four or five years ago the show had 300 head of cattle and now they hosted close to 800 head.
“It’s been a great show, there’s lots of cattle,” Jermey said. “We had the National Angus show here and there was, I believe, 200 head here just for the Angus show alone. It was just a great show. We’ve had cattle from all over western Canada here and it was very competitive.”
Organizers say they had exhibitors from as far as Quebec and British Colombia.
The Manitoba Superhorse had a successful show and sale with over 30 thousand dollars in cash and prizes awarded.
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- Contributed by Josh Sigurdson
