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.
It was a warm, sunny Aug. 25 morning when we departed from the public slip at Gagetown in a flat-bottomed, aluminum boat. Our guides were three Ducks Unlimited employees: outreach specialist Samantha Brewster and conservation specialist Frank Merrill, both based in Fredericton, and Adam Campbell of the Sackville area, the group's manager of Atlantic operations.
New Brunswick officials are advising people in flood-prone areas of the province to pay attention as the water levels of the Saint John River are on the rise. The spillway gates at the Mactaquac Dam, near Fredericton, will need to be opened soon because of the rising water, Department of Public Safety spokesman Geoffrey Downey said Monday. “The generators are running at max, and that’s a pretty good sign of how things are trending,” he said in an interview. “In the five-day forecast it’s going from a little over 81,000 cubic feet (of water) per second up to 126,000 cubic feet per second.”
Water levels along the St. John River have been dropping, despite the rain and snow that fell over the long weekend. In Gagetown, water levels are hovering around flood stage at four metres — that's down from 4.2 metres over the weekend. "There are no real impacts for people at that stage," said Geoffrey Downey, a spokesperson for New Brunswick's River Watch program. Gagetown is the only community forecast to be at or near flood stage this week. Water levels in that area are expected to drop just below flood stage by Wednesday. "It's still being stubborn," he said.
