The Healthy Wateshed Manager with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority says they've been monitoring the watershed around the Bayfield area for several years.
Mari Veliz says they're continuing to work with producers and community groups to look at how to effectively address a variety of landscape and watershed issues.
"So we continue to work on trying to determine the best management practices from both the environmental perspective and also from a soil health improvement perspective and from a more economic perspective."
Veliz says one thing that's had a significant impact is the growing popularity of planting cover crops and she says, with winter wheat coming off now, this is an opportunity to consider planting a cover crop and she urges anyone who has any questions about cover crops to call the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority.
She also notes, from year to year, there are a lot of variables regarding water quality, things like rainfall amount and different land uses, but she says there are some improvements around potential concentrations.
"However, there also is more water running off the landscape and so that extra water may have implications for more nutrients being introduced further down stream in the system."
Veliz says that could eventually impact near shore areas of Lake Huron or even move into the Great Lakes system.
