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.
University of Lethbridge researchers will study the Frank Lake wetlands in High river to better understand the impacts of land use on the health of the Little Bow watershed. The project is funded by Cargill Limited and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alliance program. With total funds of $1.5 million, the team will embark on a five-year project.
In 2013, rain-swollen rivers burst their banks across southern Alberta, prompting more than a dozen towns to declare states of emergency. The province estimated more than 100,000 people in 30 communities were affected by what Premier Allison Redford later called the worst natural disaster in Alberta’s history, with damage pegged at more than $6 billion.
Following public uproar of the Alberta government quietly pulling the 1976 coal policy, opening up more areas of the province for coal mining, a Calgary committee has started work to find out how those changes could affect the city on the Bow and Elbow Rivers. “The good news is, we found out today that although there’s different (land use) categories, the main category of the national parks and everything for our river system in the Bow is not affected with this policy,” Ward 1 Coun. Ward Sutherland said. “Obviously we’re very pleased with that.”
