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.
The latest round of negotiations between Canada and the United States over the modernization of a decades-old water-management agreement have wrapped up following discussions in Vancouver this week. The two countries are working to update the Columbia River Treaty, a flood management and power generation accord involving the Columbia and Kootenay river systems in the Columbia Basin region of British Columbia and the United States pacific northwest.
The plight and height of the Kootenay River will be the current of conversation when the Columbia River Treaty talks go virtual early next month. A virtual information session is slated for Feb. 2 — with another on Jan. 30 on the Columbia River — to provide details and answer questions about the process, with the focus on Kootenay River “interests.” Those interests — as well as information on the Columbia River Treaty Local Governments Committee’s initiative — will be revealed in the two webinars, along with the performance measures that have been identified to date.
