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.
Voters in Maine voted about 60-40 to halt construction of the project and force its backers to obtain two-thirds support in the state legislature if they want to complete it. That's after the most expensive referendum campaign in state history, where ads for and against the plan lined highways and bombarded television viewers. Legal fights are likely.
The tiny Forest City dam on the border between Maine and New Brunswick doesn't look like much more than a pile of rusting iron and aged lumber. Plants and weeds grow throughout the rock-and-crib-style dam, which is home to a family of weasels, a rudimentary passage for fish and is used in summer by local kids to float inner tubes through its gates. The dam itself doesn't generate electricity. It was built to help loggers float their timber to local mills. But its three gates have maintained the waters of East Grand Lake on New Brunswick's western border at consistent levels for almost 180 years.
