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.
Low water flow in the Bow River has forced the Eastern Irrigation District (EID) to issue a water use restriction for the County of Newell. The EID says they have seen a dramatic drop in average river flow levels in both the Bow River and Highwood River this year. In a typical year flow in the Bow River starts to drop off by the middle and end of July. This year the EID says the Bow River dropped by the beginning of June.
A project that will help the town of Okotoks and Foothills County secure a long-term water supply will receive a provincial grant of $15.9 million, Alberta Minister of Transportation Prasad Panda announced Wednesday. The project, a water pipeline that will feed from where the Highwood River meets the Bow River into water treatment facilities in Okotoks and Foothills County, will receive the funding through Alberta's Water For Life program. "It's still a little surreal that we're here. I always knew we would get here, but we've had lots of stops and starts," said Okotoks Mayor Tanya Thorn, who was elected to the top job last November but sat on town council for the previous eight years.
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.”
