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.
In 2020, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation stopped filling the ponds with potable water in a bid to conserve water, implementing a bylaw that requires some water features, like ponds that do not recirculate water, be switched off. Now many ponds throughout the city are drying up or have completely dried up — to the disappointment of some residents, like Seear. The park board said it is focusing instead on restarting a handful of fountains it previously closed to save water.
A megathrust earthquake could shatter Metro Vancouver’s capacity to send water to its 21 municipalities, a new report says. The heavily redacted report, published internally by the regional body in February but recently obtained by Glacier Media, indicates a 9 magnitude earthquake could lead to 267 water main failures across the region. Some of the most worrying failures, confirmed Metro staff and independent experts, are forecast to occur where all of the region’s main trunk lines pass under bodies of water — from dammed mountain lakes on the North Shore, under the Burrard Inlet, and down the line, below the Fraser River.
Residents are warned to stay away from rivers and streams as parts of the North Shore, Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast are currently under a flood watch, while Metro Vancouver remains under a rainfall warning. Environment Canada said 75 to 150 millimetres of rain is expected to fall between Friday and Sunday morning, causing rivers and streams to rise very quickly.
A massive new piece of the Metro Vancouver’s water infrastructure network deep below Burrard Inlet is now complete. Metro Vancouver issued a release Monday morning confirming a 1.1-kilometre tunnel linking North Vancouver to Burnaby is now finished. “Completing this tunnel is an important milestone in this project and a remarkable testament to the innovation that is being used in Metro Vancouver to bring clean drinking water from the North Shore to the rest of the region,” said Sav Dhaliwal, chair of Metro Vancouver’s board of directors.
Work has ground to a halt on construction of a $1-billion wastewater treatment plant in North Vancouver, B.C., after mass layoffs by the contractor. Metro Vancouver commissioner Jerry Dobrovolny said he learned Wednesday that Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP has "significantly reduced" the number of people working on the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant.
