The provincial government will contribute $1.5 million to a new fund dedicated to maintaining the province's wetlands, Premier Shawn Graham announced today.  The Wetlands Sustainability Fund will enable Ducks Unlimited Canada to carry out ongoing maintenance of infrastructure on wetlands it maintains in New Brunswick. From left: Mac Dunfield, senior Atlantic director, Ducks Unlimited Canada; Natural Resources Minister Wally Stiles; and Graham.
From left: Mac Dunfield, senior Atlantic director, Ducks Unlimited Canada; Natural Resources Minister Wally Stiles; and Graham.

The New Brunswick government will contribute $1.5 million to a new fund dedicated to maintaining the province’s wetlands, Premier Shawn Graham announced yesterday.

The Wetlands Sustainability Fund will enable Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) to carry out ongoing maintenance of infrastructure on wetlands it maintains in New Brunswick. Currently, DUC has 371 projects in the province, covering a combined 20,539 hectares.

In New Brunswick, DUC will use capital and interest from the fund to maintain 217 water control structures, 59 fishways and 136 kilometres of dykes located primarily in the St. John River flood plain, the Northumberland Strait coastal plain, and the Tantramar area of the upper Bay of Fundy.

DUC will also contribute to the fund.

Graham said that work carried out under the fund is expected to generate about 50 jobs annually, mostly in rural New Brunswick. This includes employment for local heavy equipment contractors, suppliers of construction materials, and workers needed to maintain and rebuild water control structures, fishways, earth dykes and other infrastructure.

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