Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

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.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

Saanich Peninsula

Fighting to save crops - Vancouver Island drought: tourists asked to bring own water

Fighting to save crops - Vancouver Island drought: tourists asked to bring own water

At Michell Farms on the Saanich Peninsula, the pumps are working 24/7. Water is rushing out of wells at about 600 gallons a minute into a series of ponds, and then pushed through pipes to ­irrigation systems to keep the family’s crops alive and growing. With no measurable rain for nearly two months now, and nothing but heat in the forecast, water is becoming a precious resource. On many of the Gulf Islands, visitors are being asked to bring their own water. Residents are urged to do everything to preserve wells, aquifers and natural bodies of water. Some marinas aren’t filling water tanks for boaters.

The Sprout: Water shortages hurting producers in the West

The Sprout: Water shortages hurting producers in the West

We start with a weather update, where a water shortage in Manitoba is creating challenges for the province’s cattle producers. “We’ve got surface water conditions that are the lowest that I (can) recall,” Tyler Fulton, president of Manitoba Beef Producers, told the Western Producer. “If the current moisture situation… is not unprecedented, we’d have to go back 40 years to find something similar.” Dry conditions also have farmers in British Columbia’s Saanich Peninsula are irrigating early thanks to an unusually warm spring. CTV News reports. Meanwhile, south of the border, drought conditions in the Western U.S. are worsening. As CNN reports, drought is being experienced in 88 per cent of the region — with all areas of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada listed as being in a drought.

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