Improving Pine River one project at a time!

By Adrienne Mason, PRWIN Project Coordinator

The Pine River Watershed Initiative Network has completed many environmental projects. The Pine River Watershed Initiative Network, or PRWIN, is located in the watershed of the Pine River, in Southern Bruce County.

What started out as a small group of interested individuals sitting around a kitchen table has grown into an incredible force of local residents, groups and organizations, such as Saugeen Conservation and many other partners, aimed at improving this amazing watershed. Since 2008, when the group was formed, more than 219,000 trees have been planted across the entire Pine River Watershed.

In 2015, water and sediment control berms were constructed in the northeast portion of a tributary to the South Pine River. This project site (#6) is located in the northeastern portion of the accompanying map. These berms resulted in saving approximately 33,554 kilograms of sediment per year from washing into the South Pine River and into Lake Huron. This was based on research conducted by the Healthy Lake Huron: Clean Water, Clean Beaches team, utilizing data and water samples collected from an automated sampler.

Through Healthy Lake Huron’s model, it is estimated that the South Pine River is currently losing 75 kilograms of sediment per hectare during storm events. That’s a lot of precious topsoil. We will continue to do all that we can in improving the environmental conditions along the Pine River Watershed.