Update - NLFF's Riparian Protection Project Dogpound Creek

[PeterSL]

One of the four projects for which NLFF received an ACA Conservation, Community, and Education Grant this year was to continue our work with ACA in protecting riparian land along Dogpound Creek.  However, the owner of the property where we had planned to install wildlife-friendly fencing and an alternative watering system to keep his cattle out of the stream and the 12 acres of riparian land on his property, decided not to go ahead.  We let the ACA Grants Coordinator know and planned to return the grant funds that we’d already received.

This week, however, ACA told us about another family, further upstream on the Dogpound, who also had 12 acres of riparian land on their property that they were interested in protecting. It’s just to the east of Highway 22 near Cremona. These folk already had some fencing in place although needed about another 300m. The cattle watering system needed was more complex and involved digging a well and laying a water line to three troughs at different locations across the grazing area. We decided to take it on - not doing the digging but asking the ACA Grants Coordinator if we could keep the grant and contract the hard work to a professional. That required approval from the ACA President/CEO which we received. There was no need to build access gates into the fencing for this project as we’ve had to do in previous projects. The Creek is accessible from the road and the landowner already had a couple of gates in the fencing they had previously erected. They’re used to seeing anglers passing through. Heard though that there had been some fish kill on the Creek during the heat wave a couple of weeks ago.

Net result is that we’re continuing with our 6^th continuous year of riparian protection on the Dogpound and the Raven supported by funding from ACA. Hope to post some photos soon.