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.
A mysterious patch of fluorescent green water that appeared in Venice's famed Grand Canal Sunday was caused by a chemical commonly used in underwater construction to help identify leaks, environmental authorities say. The chemical – fluorescein – is non-toxic. It remains unclear how the substance ended up in the canal, but the Regional Agency for the Environment in Venice (ARPAV) said given the volume released it was unlikely to be an accident.
Venetian authorities are investigating after a patch of fluorescent green water appeared in the famed Grand Canal on Sunday morning. “This morning a patch of phosphorescent green liquid appeared in the Grand Canal of Venice, reported by some residents near the Rialto Bridge. The prefect has called an urgent meeting with the police to investigate the origin of the liquid,” Veneto regional president Luca Zaia wrote on Twitter.
Some of the world's most famous glaciers, including in the Dolomites in Italy, the Yosemite and Yellowstone parks in the United States, and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are set to disappear by 2050 due to global warming — whatever the temperature rise scenario, according to a UNESCO report. UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, monitors some 18,600 glaciers across 50 of its World Heritage sites and said that glaciers in one-third of World Heritage sites will disappear by 2050 regardless of the applied climate scenario.
Vast swathes of land south of Rome were boggy swamps for thousands of years until a monumental drainage programme in the 1930s turned malaria-infested marshes into prime agricultural fields. Fast forward 90 years and, where water was once abundant, now it is growing scarce as one of the worst droughts in living memory fuelled by weeks of scorching temperatures has drastically reduced the flow of local springs. But ageing infrastructure and leaky pipes are exacerbating an already disastrous situation, with much precious water vanishing down the drain before it even reaches the taps.
The European Commission took Italy to the EU's top court on Wednesday over the country's failure to provide clean drinking water to its citizens. The Commission said it was suing Italy because in some areas the levels of arsenic and fluoride in drinking water have long exceeded the maximum values allowed by EU law.
