The Municipality of Norfolk Treherne has joined "Eco West," an organization which helps communities develop Climate Change Local Action Plans. Reeve Craig Spencer says Eco West is the arm in the prairie provinces which dispenses funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and notes joining the group will allow their municipality to possibly find some savings and reductions in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Spencer says council sees this as a very positive step for the future with an immediate benefit as well. He notes Norfolk Treherne is looking to contract with FCM to see if they can get some funding assistance for a feasibility study to investigate the climate change benefits of the Boyne Valley Water Initiative.

Spencer adds doing the greenhouse gas emission study can hopefully lead to changing some aspects of their present practice to reduce those emissions. He says a feasibility study of the Boyne Valley Water Initiative could reveal how to mitigate some of the problems we experience here in this part of the world. Spencer notes there are peaks and valleys in our climate which didn't exist a number of years ago, so everyone needs to start planning for this.

He says the Boyne Valley Water Initiative is more than twenty-three thousand acre feet of water stored for potable water and for irrigation purposes, adding it can definitely be of benefit to Norfolk Treherne and to many of the municipalities across southern Manitoba. Spencer notes we have to find better uses for what we see going down the Assiniboine River each spring, and he believes the Boyne Valley Water Initiative may fit the bill.