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 new report has been released by the International Joint Commission (IJC) for public review as part of the ongoing debate over Plan 2014, a controversial regulation plan to manage water levels on Lake Ontario. The phase-one report, the first of two to be released later, makes six recommendations on the road to helping better prepare for crisis high-water levels along Lake Ontario shorelines that wreaked havoc in 2017, 2019 and in early 2020.
Joint Canada-U.S. regulators of Lake Ontario water levels say they are monitoring ice-cover conditions to ensure proper outflows from the Moses Saunders Dam into the St. Lawrence River. Outflows from Lake Ontario are higher than usual for this time of the year, said regulators. International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board said, “although flows have been reduced, the outflows remain relatively high compared to the historical record. The average Lake Ontario outflow for January 2022 is currently the fourth highest on record since 1900 (following 2020, 2021, and 1987), and the January mean Lake Ontario level is the 15th highest on record since 1918.”
