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.
Federal Indigenous Services minister Marc Miller visited the Semiahmoo First Nation Wednesday (July 28) to help celebrate the nation’s removal from a boil water advisory in place since 2005. But it was also an opportunity to acknowledge, after discussion with SFN councillors, that much work still has to be done, he said. Miller told Peace Arch News that the federal government must continue to play a role in SFN infrastructure projects that may take as much as a decade to achieve.
The Semiahmoo First Nation has been under one of the longest continuous boil water advisories in Canadian history, but this recommended health safety practice will finally end sometime in 2021. Earlier this month, the First Nation held a ceremony recognizing the City of Surrey’s opening of the Semiahmoo Water Tie-in Connections to the water distribution system.
The Liberal government will miss a target it set during the 2015 federal election campaign to lift all long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations by March 2021 — in some cases by several years — according to a survey of communities by CBC News. More than a dozen First Nations said projects to end long-term drinking water advisories won't be completed by the promised deadline.
Semiahmoo First Nation could have potable water – something they haven’t had in more than a decade – as early as next spring, after signing a pair of servicing agreements with the City of Surrey Monday. The agreements, signed at Surrey’s council meeting, also mean sanitary-sewer infrastructure and water for fire protection for the first time in the nation’s history.
