for potash production. Pipelines in the Qu'Appelle Valley There are two major pipelines that run through the Qu'Appelle Valley Corridor. The first is the TransCanada Mainline system that runs from the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan, straight through to Manitoba, Ontario and part of Quebec. This pipeline is owned by TransCanada Pipelines Limited. The second is the Enbridge Mainline System. Owned by Enbridge Pipelines Inc., this system is used to transport petroleum products as well as natural gas liquids from Western Canada across to Manitoba and down into the United States. An initiative in 2015 by the Nature Conservancy of Canada worked to create safe and ecosystem friendly hiking trails that follow the pipeline routes in order to bring awareness to the fragile ecosystem of the Qu'Appelle Valley. Railway in the Qu'Appelle Valley Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) provides transportation for oil, grain, consumer products, fertilizers, etc. through the Qu'Appelle Valley and all of Saskatchewan. The CP Belle Plaine Railway Spur was developed to transport potash from the Belle Plaine mine to market, which was done by adding of rail from the mine site to the Kalium Spur near Belle Plaine. This construction was intensive and caused many million cubic metres (tens of million cubic feet) of excavation in order to build the rail beds into farmland and surrounding valley walls. Excavation occurred in areas of the valley that affected aquifers and the Qu'Appelle River, as well as the addition of a steel tunnel to allow for traffic to travel over the spur. Another addition to the landscape was of culvert to mitigate flooding and manage drainage around the track structure. Railway impacts CP Railway Belle Plaine Spur The Belle Plaine Spur was created to facilitate the transportation of potash from the K+S Bethune Legacy mine to various markets across the country. This was done by connecting the new railway from the mine located near Findlater, SK to the existing railway, known as the Kalium Spur, near the community of Belle Plaine. While the construction of the spur did promise to create greater economic opportunities in terms of marketing potash, there were major environmental impacts on this section of the Qu'Appelle Valley. During construction, there were enormous amounts of dirt and earth moved to facilitate the rail bed. The rail bed was built by KPCL Dirt Movers who estimate that during the construction phase, of earth was excavated and there was