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.
Two years ago, what would soon become a historic atmospheric river made landfall in B.C. as nearly a month's worth of rain pounded down on the province in less than 48 hours. Over a terrifying few days, mass evacuations were ordered, thousands of animals were lost, and homes were flooded to their upper levels. Every highway connecting the Lower Mainland to the rest of the province was badly damaged or destroyed.
The province has confirmed water of poor quality flowing through the Nooksack River in Washington state is coming from multiple sources in B.C. This comes a month after Washington farmers and officials called upon B.C. to investigate and address high levels of fecal bacteria coming from the Canadian side of the border. A joint letter sent in June from the Whatcom Family Farmers and the North Lynden Watershed Improvement District addressed to B.C. Premier David Eby and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said routine water quality testing done by Whatcom County and the state's agriculture department found bacteria at levels over 200 times higher than the water quality standard.
"We’re right on the border," said Fred Likkel, the executive director of Whatcom Family Farmers—pointing to parallel roads, which represent the border on a remote stretch of road near Double Ditch Stream. "There’s no other answer than it’s coming directly from Canada." The stream Likkel is standing alongside is one of five main drainages that originate in Bristish Columbia and flow into Washington, all draining into the Nooksack River and eventually downstream to Portage Bay and the Lummi Nation’s primary shellfish growing areas.
Washington state officials and farmers are calling on the British Columbia government to act on water quality reports that show large amounts of bacteria are flowing from north of the border into the Nooksack River watershed. They say high levels of fecal coliform — of which E. coli is a subgroup — are flowing from a Fraser Valley creek into Pepin Creek in Washington before entering the Nooksack, which empties into the sea near shellfish beds owned by the Lummi Nation.
Spot testing of creeks across South Langley and Surrey is the first step in reducing levels of bacteria that are affecting shellfish harvests downstream. On Monday, Feb. 6, Lisa Dreves of Langley Environmental Partners Society was out sampling from Langley and Abbotsford creeks that run south across the Canada-U.S. border into the Nooksack River. At a bridge in Otter Park off 248th Street, she flings an old plastic milk jug tied to the end of a rope into Bertrand Creek, hauling up about a litre of water. Smaller samples are poured into bottles for later testing. Meanwhile, another device dangled off the bridge checks the oxygen content and temperature of the stream, both important for fish.
Leaders from B.C. and Washington state say they have reached an agreement to work together on redeveloping a flooding prevention plan and response for the Nooksack River. Flooding in southern B.C. and northern Washington in November displaced an estimated 500 people south of the border and about 14,000 were forced to flee their homes on the Canadian side. Rising water levels in the Nooksack contributed to flooding on the Sumas Prairie in Abbotsford and resulted in billions of dollars of damage to the province’s agriculture industry. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says in a release that flooding will continue to worsen in the face of population growth, development and climate change, and a long-term approach on both sides of the border is needed.
If, as the old African proverb puts it, it takes a village to raise a child, it can also take a community to help someone recover from disaster. That’s the story Trina Enns tells about how her church – the South Abbotsford Church, part of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches – is helping her rebuild her hope and home after last November’s devastating flood in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.
A plan devised by American officials that could lead to the creation of a “floodway” to allow the Nooksack River to spill into Canada during high water has many Abbotsford residents on edge. Paula Harris, river and flood manager for Whatcom County, presented the concept to the Whatcom County Flood Control Zone Advisory Committee earlier this month, asking them to support a request for federal funding to buy out homes in an area between the Nooksack River and the Canadian border as a way to mitigate future flooding.
On a cool, damp evening, at a recent community meeting at a high school gym in northwest Washington, area residents voiced anger over inaction they believed had led to disastrous flooding. And they wanted to know from public officials what was going to be done to make sure it didn’t happen again. Residents pointed to the last major flood in 1990, which, like this one, had also driven devastating flood waters from the Nooksack River across the border to Abbotsford.
The Liberal MLA for Abbotsford South says the provincial government should be responsible for helping farmers in flood-stricken communities get back on their feet. Bruce Banman says the province failed to notify its residents, especially in floodplain areas like the Sumas Prairie, when an atmospheric river brought more than 200 millimetres of rain earlier this month. "This government was not paying attention to the Nooksack River at all and we lost 48 precious hours to be able to move equipment," Banman said on the CBC's The Early Edition.
We start in British Columbia, where more heavy rainfall is expected this week and flooding shows no signs of abating. Floodwaters in the hard-hit community of Abbotsford are rising again as the Nooksack River south of the border overflows. Farmers in the region continue to assess the damage to their operations. As the Canadian Press reports, blueberry farmer David Gill says the devastating floods have set famers back by “at least a decade” and it will take them years to recover. Thousands of livestock were killed in the floods and fields across the Fraser Valley are still flooded with contaminated water. As CBC News reports, experts say it will be weeks before farmers know how the contaminated waters have affected the region’s fertile farmland.
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun says he's increasingly concerned about rising waters in and around his city as a series of atmospheric rivers continues to pummel B.C.'s South Coast. During a news conference on Sunday, Braun said Whatcom County in Washington state had advised that water has now risen above a dike on the Nooksack River, and it's pooling between the river and a nearby road.
