Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
And a new threat is gradually emerging. Water temperatures are warming, thanks to a combination of climate change and human water management techniques. And in some places they’re growing hot enough to kill the fish. “We’ve seen instances where we’ve had die-offs of coldwater species,” said Kathryn Smith, a doctoral candidate in the Coastal Hydrology Lab at Dalhousie University in Canada.
People who want to protect the Atlantic salmon populations in Cape Breton say a small grant from the Nova Scotia government will have a big impact on their efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change in a local waterway. The Cheticamp River Salmon Association recently received $75,000 under the Sustainable Communities Challenge Fund to help build deflectors, which are piles of rock that narrow the river channel and make the water deeper.
People can still fish in parts of a Cape Breton river famous for its Atlantic salmon, but other sections are temporarily closed due to warm waters and a local non-profit group says climate change is to blame. Until recently, the Margaree River's cool waters were ideal for trout and salmon, but within the last five years, parts of the river have been closed to angling during the summer, said Paul MacNeil, president of the Margaree Salmon Association.
