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 Canadian mining company has been fined more than $16 million for polluting waterways in B.C.'s East Kootenay. The B.C. Ministry of Environment has imposed three administrative penalties on Teck Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Teck Resources, citing the company's failure to have water treatment facilities ready by a required date to limit emissions of nitrate and selenium from its Fording River operations in the Elk Valley.
Ontario's Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) says it is "highly concerned" to hear about yet another instance of sewage flowing straight into the Hamilton Harbour. This comes after the city of Hamilton announced Monday it learned 11 homes near Rutherford Avenue and Myrtle Avenue in Ward 3 have been flushing their wastewater straight into Lake Ontario since 1996. The exact amount of sewage is unclear.
"We're working with the Ministry of Environment on what steps to take ... We need to make sure it's handled properly as it's a safety issue. And we don't want to have any impact on drinking water." The loss of that many cattle "is a huge loss for any rancher," the chief added, and the recovery has a limited window to happen before it could potentially impact water quality and also before the carcasses are no longer suitable to go to the rendering plant.
With Waterloo region's climate projected to be more extreme in the coming decades, officials with the region's water services are already thinking of how to adapt to future changes and challenges. Adapting current infrastructure and future builds to climate change takes time and a lot of planning, said Kaoru Yajima, a senior engineer with the region's water services. It's why that work has already been underway for several years. "We've been seeing changes in the climate for some time. It's not like it just happened today or last year. It's been coming around for some time and we knew that we had to plan," he told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo.
Residents were seen checking out the damage on Buck Lake early Thursday morning, the day after a tanker truck hauling edible beef fat rolled into the body of water. The truck was driving on Perth Road near Hilltop Lane Wednesday when it fell into the western basin of Buck Lake in South Frontenac Township, Ont. The Ministry of Environment assessed the damage that same day, along with any possible environmental concerns.
Okanagan Lake is not going to turn into an ocean-like salty body of water anytime soon. But recent chloride measurements at various points along the lake taken by the Ministry of Environment do indicate an upward trend. And while the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OKWB) has no imminent concerns about the current threat the lake water getting saltier poses on aquatic life or drinking water, it remains on its monitoring radar.
The province has renewed the operating permits of Triton Water Canada Holdings Inc. for five years at its water bottling sites in Aberfoyle and Erin. The sites were formerly owned by Nestlé Waters Canada for years before they sold it earlier this year. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks announced the permits on Monday. A moratorium on new water taking permits was lifted in April. The new permits allows BlueTriton to take 1.1 million litres of water per day from the Erin location and 3.6 million litres a day from its Aberfoyle location. Despite concerns raised over water extraction permits for years by local community members and environment activists who believe the removal of water could have detrimental effects to the local water supply, the province says otherwise.
A Leamington property owner is fighting with the province about who is responsible for cleaning up a water well that is leaking gas on one of his lots. "The situation is kind of at a stalemate," David Cockerham said. Cockerham is currently being ordered by the Ministry of Environment to plug a well that sits in the corner of a lot that he owns next to his primary residence — a job that could potentially cost upwards of $900,000.
The City of Abbotsford is investigating after residents witnessed large pillows of foam floating in a local creek a few days after laundry powder was spread on the rooftops of a nearby townhouse complex. Tom Ulanowski, who has lived at the complex at 4401 Blauson Blvd. on the side of Sumas Mountain for five years, said he's concerned the foam will harm wildlife in and around Clayburn Creek. "I was quite shocked and concerned," he said. "Literally, there were piles of foam eight feet high in some areas."
West Nipissing municipal staff are flushing hydrants in Verner today as they investigate a mysterious winter appearance of ‘brown water’ during the past couple of weeks. Some residents, but not all, are reporting water issues that have a long history in the area due to manganese found in the Veuve River, the source for Verner’s drinking water. While the mineral is considered safe to ingest, it’s actually required in small amounts in the human diet, it smells and tastes bad and is hard on laundry.
On Oct. 20, 2018 the citizens of the Cowichan Valley voted for establishing the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Service Establishment Bylaw (#4202). We thought that this bylaw would be used to protect our water supplies. It has been known for many years that the wells at three commercial establishments on Fisher Road, Cobble Hill had nitrate levels greatly exceeding the Health Canada Drinking Water Guidelines. These wells and surrounding CVRD monitoring wells have been monitored by a number of agencies, including the CVRD, in the past. The Cobble Hill Aquifer Interagency Task Group (CHAITG) was established to deal with this nitrate contamination and this Task Group commissioned Western Water Associates Ltd. (WWAL) to carry out a review of past studies. Surprisingly, this review did not review aquifer nitrite levels, only nitrate levels. Nitrite is a bigger concern than nitrate since nitrite can convert the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin to methemoglobin which does not carry oxygen. Thus, nitrite can cause tissue oxygen deficiency which is particularly problematical for infants and children since it can stunt their mental and physical growth.
