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.
With a recent donation in Quebec, Labatt Breweries of Canada has donated more than a million cans of water to support communities with 24 distributions in seven provinces over 11 years. Established in 2012, Labatt's Canadian Disaster Relief Program was created to provide safe drinking water to Canadian communities experiencing disasters such as flooding, forest and wildfires, environmental spills, drought and ice storms that compromised a community's water supply.
Thousands of residents of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., who have been without running water since Monday after a major water-main break, were beginning to get it back on Friday morning. The city warned residents to boil the water for one minute before consuming it and to delay running appliances that use lots of water to avoid overloading the newly repaired pipe.
A major water main break has caused Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., to declare a state of emergency as half the population — about 26,000 households, or 56,000 people — has been without running water for more than 48 hours. The city, about 40 kilometres southeast of Montreal, says water won't be back until at least end-of-day Thursday.
The problem, which the city has said is because of aging pipes, has led to complaints from people living on dozens of streets in various parts of the city. Some took their concerns to city council earlier this year, saying they tested their water and found unsafe amounts of iron. Danis went to speak to council last month. "I would love for something to happen, but when is it going to happen?" she asked. "We have no idea."
At the bottom of a slope in a dense Montreal neighbourhood, there's a new park with benches, an open field and a playground — along with two small pedestrian bridges. When there's heavy rain, water rushes down the streets and sidewalks into the green space, forming a small lake beneath the overpasses, in a carved-out area filled with grasses, shrubs and rocks. In the days that follow, the water slowly seeps into the soil and stormwater system. It's all been engineered to prevent flash flooding in nearby streets and homes, while nourishing the vegetation in the park.
The city of Montreal is planning to build more urban "sponge" infrastructure to protect against future flood waters brought on by climate change. The announcement Tuesday came as Montreal once again found itself drying out after heavy rainfall pummelled the city in the early morning. The city plans to build 30 sponge parks and 400 more sponge sidewalks by 2025 — green spaces that naturally absorb excess rainfall instead of draining the water directly into neighbourhood sewers.
Laval residents in the Ste-Dorothée district can now use their tap water but officials warned Thursday it still isn’t safe to drink, even if boiled. City officials first put out a notice on Tuesday, telling residents not to use their tap water at all. The advisory was issued after firefighters extinguished a blaze in the area and contaminants were found in the water. City officials suspect one of the products used to extinguish the blaze entered the local water supply for a brief amount of time.
The Sainte-Dorothée district in Laval, Que., is currently under a notice of non-use of water due to water quality concerns. Citizens are permitted to use their toilets and flush, but other water use is restricted until further notice. The notice of non-use of water is issued when water consumption poses a health risk, and the water system contains contaminants that cannot be removed by boiling, the city says on its website.
Frustrated neighbours in Trois-Rivières, Que., are sparing no effort to make their case that the province should think twice before doing business with a glass recycling company near their homes — collecting water samples and even using drones to prove that the operation is far from environmentally friendly. Gilbert Cabana and his neighbours have a wide array of skill sets.
As the city of Montreal looks for solutions for its aging, leaky water infrastructure, Mayor Valérie Plante has made it clear that residential water meters are not an option. In theory, meters could be used to charge each household for consumption, thus encouraging people to use less and reduce the strain on a system that is essentially hemorrhaging drinking water.
From great white sharks around Quebec's Îles-de-la-Madeleine to lobsters conquering new territory, oceanographers say the warming of the Gulf of St. Lawrence is having an impact on the creatures that live in its unique ecosystem. Data from Fisheries and Oceans Canada show that deepwater temperatures have been increasing overall in the gulf since 2009. In 2022, gulf-wide average temperatures hit new record highs at depths of 150 to 300 metres, and passed the threshold of 7 C at 300 metres for the first time. Average monthly temperatures at the sea surface also set new records in August and September, the data showed.
Aging infrastructure, climate change and population growth are putting significant pressure on Montreal’s water resources. Faced with the magnitude of the issues and planned investments, the city is launching a public consultation on the future of water in its territory. Montreal is wasting too much drinking water, it is dumping too many pollutants into the St. Lawrence River, its aging infrastructure is unable to swallow the ever-increasing quantity of water spilled during torrential rains, and the city does not have enough money to update and adapt its infrastructure related to water management.
In Canada, centring conservation with the country's indigenous peoples is allowing its original stewards to reconnect to their land and culture – and proving remarkably effective. Every year, when the frozen streams have melted and greenery emerges after months of winter stillness, Dolcy Meness knows it's time. Packing their truck, she and a colleague set off through the densely forested hills of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg territory, an Algonquin First Nation in the province of Quebec.
"For the first time coming to the island since I was a little child, I saw corn growing," Diabo, council chief responsible for the environment portfolio at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, said at a news conference Wednesday announcing the completion of the nearly decade-long project to restore water flow in the bay and naturalize its surroundings.
A park in Lachine, Que., will become soon help Montreal avoid future flooding. The city is redesigning Brewster Park, near Lac Saint-Louis, using concepts from the realm of phytotechnology — the application of plants to solve engineering and science problems — to make it into a "sponge park" that will absorb water during heavy rainfall events.
The city says it wants to create more green spaces that can act as sponges, so water gets absorbed into the ground rather than drained into sewers during rain deluges. Firefighters were deployed to help pump water out of buildings. Sabourin said the city typically gets 90 millimetres of rain in July — meaning Montreal received almost as much rain it usually sees in July in the span of two hours. The city's sewers simply don't have the capacity to hold that much water, he said, explaining the floods. The area south of the downtown core was most affected.
A town near Quebec City declared a state of local emergency and other communities ordered preventive evacuations on Tuesday as torrential rain caused rivers across southern Quebec to burst free of their banks. By Tuesday, between 500 and 600 people were forced from their homes in Ste-Brigitte-de-Laval, where the mayor declared a state of emergency for the next 48 hours.
Today, Annie Koutrakis, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and Member of Parliament for Vimy, and Christopher Skeete, Minister for the Economy, Minister responsible for the Fight against Racism, Minister responsible for the Laval region and Member of the National Assembly of Quebec for Sainte-Rose, on behalf of Andrée Laforest, Minister of Municipal Affairs, announced a joint investment of more than $24 million to support a new stormwater network in Laval. This project aims to control recurring sewer backups in the vicinity of Monty and Cyrano streets. In particular, the funding will be used to separate the sewer networks by adding new storm pipes and to put in place new measures for the treatment of the quality of rainwater.
A consortium of Canadian and French companies, including Airex Energy, Groupe Rémabec, and SUEZ, are investing C$80 million to construct North America’s largest biochar production facility. This initiative highlights the growing global recognition of biochar’s potential in carbon sequestration and soil enhancement.
A precautionary boil-water advisory is in effect for a portion of Saint-Lazare, an off-island suburb west of Montreal. The advisory was issued Tuesday. The municipality says an unplanned outage occurred due to an aqueduct failure during work on a sewer project. The entire suburb is not affected. The advisory is for the area east of Montée Saint-Robert as a precautionary measure only, for a minimum period of three consecutive days. This is the time required for the water to be analyzed by a certified laboratory and for the results to be communicated to the municipality.
