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.
The Town of Tecumseh unveiled the region's first high-water rescue vehicle that can safely provide access to severely flooded areas. Tecumseh Fire Chief Wade Bondy showed off the new vehicle, known formally as Support 2, during a news conference Tuesday. "We have had two historic floods in the region — it was a few years ago — where we did actually take some of our current fire trucks through, did a little bit of damage because we exceeded the water capabilities of those trucks," said Bondy.
After years without fluoride, parts of Windsor-Essex will have the mineral added back into drinking water systems Wednesday. This week, residents in Windsor, Tecumseh and LaSalle will have fluoride flowing into their water systems for the first time since 2013. Fluoride had been added to the water in Windsor for decades, but in 2013, city councillors voted to discontinue its use.
According to the report presented to WUC, the additional testing is primarily necessary to determine how fluoride will interact with the phosphoric acid already present in the system as a mechanism to prevent lead from leaching into the water supply. "WUC will be the first known water utility to add fluoride to the drinking supply which already contains phosphoric acid for purposes of lead mitigation," reads an excerpt from the report. "While other utilities have both additives … no other utility (in North American based on research to date) is known to have fluoride added subsequent to the addition of phosphoric acid."
