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.
Minor coastal flooding is possible this weekend due to elevated ocean water levels on B.C.’s South Coast. Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for the region early Saturday morning. “(A) low barometric pressure will combine with a period of high astronomical tide to produce elevated water levels (Saturday) and Sunday,” Environment Canada staff said in the statement.
A state of local emergency has lifted in the Village of Harrison Hot Springs, east of Vancouver, just days after it was issued when problems at the local water treatment facility put water availability at risk. A statement from Mayor Ed Wood says two pumps are now in full working order at the plant and an external backup pump is also available, if needed.
A state of local emergency has been declared in the Village of Harrison Hot Springs, east of Vancouver, as two of three pumps at the community's water treatment plant have failed. A statement from Mayor Ed Wood says the availability of water for drinking and firefighting could be at risk. He says the water treatment plant is operating normally on a single pump and a backup external pump has been rented, in case the third one fails.
Vancouver is well known for its rainy climate but parched lawns are now a common sight in its sprawling suburbs and city parks. New restrictions on watering began early this summer and - unlike elsewhere - most residents are happy to comply. The grass in front of Sky Morfopoulos' home in East Vancouver is barely grass at all. Although the strands are brown and parched, tiny sprinkles of weeds and clovers blend in with the fading grass and present an illusion of a semi-green lawn.
Lynn Kriwoken dips a black rod into the deep waters of Alta Lake next to Whistler, B.C., about 157 kilometres north of Vancouver, and a bunch of different numbers start rapidly moving on her monitor. Depth, oxygen levels, turbidity and much more appear on the screen — metrics that measure the relative health of the water in the moment, and when done regularly enough, reflects the health of the lake over time.
The recent decision to reactivate several Vancouver-owned fountains that use millions of litres of drinking water annually is being scrutinized as B.C. officials sound the alarm about worsening drought conditions across the province. The five fountains are not capable of recirculating water, meaning that water is pumped in, used once and flushed into the sewer – something Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby considers wasteful.
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.
It’s been nearly one week since local officials learned the federal government chose Winnipeg over Sault Ste. Marie as the host city for the Canada Water Agency (CWA) headquarters. Disappointed by the decision, members of the CWA task force in town remained hopeful the Sault could still have some involvement with the federal agency by hosting a regional hub.
Most of Canada’s water infrastructure was built between the 1950s and 1970s, and today, Over 30% of drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is in a precarious state due to lack of maintenance. Tackling this aging infrastructure will require significant public investment, especially in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, which will create great business opportunities. Furthermore, the slow progress of digitization in Canada also opens up opportunities for Spanish technology companies.
Canada formalized its minimum protection standards for marine protected areas on Wednesday at a global ocean conservation summit in Vancouver. Oil and gas activity, mining, the dumping of certain waste materials and destructive bottom trawling fishing won’t be allowed in any MPAs established from April 2019 and onward, said federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray and Steven Guilbeault, minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, during a press conference at the IMPAC5 summit.
The 15th round of negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty was held in Vancouver on January 25 and 26. The Columbia River Treaty is a water management agreement that was implemented in 1964 between the United States and Canada. The U.S. prepaid Canada $64 million for a 60-year agreement to ensure flood control operations would be provided. The Columbia Treaty doesn’t have an end date but can be terminated by either country as of September 2024 or onward, if 10 years' notice is given.
For the first time since last May, the Sunshine Coast Regional District has lifted water conservation regulations affecting a large part of its area north of Vancouver. A statement from the regional district says, effective immediately, Stage 1 water conservation regulations have been removed in the Chapman water system. In October, the regional district said the reservoir — which serves about 90 per cent of residents in the area — was at risk of "imminent exhaustion'' as southern B.C. recorded an unseasonably dry summer and warm fall.
The latest round of negotiations between Canada and the United States over the modernization of a decades-old water-management agreement have wrapped up following discussions in Vancouver this week. The two countries are working to update the Columbia River Treaty, a flood management and power generation accord involving the Columbia and Kootenay river systems in the Columbia Basin region of British Columbia and the United States pacific northwest.
The Canadian Coast Guard says it is working to contain and assess an oil spill from a container ship in Vancouver's English Bay. According to the coast guard, a pilot notified them of pollution from a ship around 11:40 a.m PT Saturday. Officials say the spill originated from the container vessel MV Europe, with a slick visible from the air on the water close to Spanish Banks beach.
D'Arcy Henderson picks up pieces of plastic and trash strewn across her neighbour's yard. The Columbia Valley resident points to steaming piles of waste sitting on the other side of a blue fence as the source. "If you look at the plastic on the ground and the garbage blowing, that's 500 years that won't disappear," she told CBC News. Environmental concerns are mounting in the small community near Cultus Lake, B.C., about 101 kilometres east of Vancouver, after truckload after truckload of business waste was dropped at a farm without provincial approval, violating B.C.'s Environmental Management Act.
The peak of a so-called king tide has passed without major damage in Vancouver, as flood watches and high streamflow advisories remain posted across Vancouver Island and much of B.C.'s inner south coast. The big tide combined with heavy rain and snowmelt had raised the risk of flooding after pre-Christmas snowstorms. Environment Canada said the tide pushed water levels at Point Atkinson in West Vancouver to a height of 5.70 metres, breaking the previous record of 5.61 metres set in 1982.
For Vancouver's Yasmin Schepens, what started as a project to photograph her favourite spot of beach has blown into, at times, an overwhelming commitment to rid it of garbage like cigarette butts, food wrappers and other pieces of plastic. "I couldn't just leave it there, so I started picking it up," said the 30-year-old who moved to Canada from Belgium in 2016.
The Canadian population just blew past 39 million, and the country is only going to get bigger: Ottawa announced in November it wants to bring in a half-million more immigrants each year. The population grows apace, our infrastructure — governmental and private — is struggling to keep up. And it’s a story playing out across Canada. Few young people can afford a home, we’re all stuck on gridlocked roads or jammed into buses and subways, and our hospitals are overcrowded. Climate change will only further weaken infrastructure that is crumbling in many parts of the country. And Canada isn’t particularly known for getting stuff done quickly anymore.
Vancouver-based infinitii ai inc. ("infinitii ai") (CSE: IAI) (FSE: 7C5) (OTC: CDTAF) today announced it has signed a national distribution agreement for infinitii flowworks predictive analytics software for Smart City water and wastewater infrastructure utilities with Core & Main Inc. (NYSE: CNM). "Core & Main's Core+ solutions are leading edge, high value digital platforms for Smart Cities, and we're honored to be an integral part of them," said Jean Charles Phaneuf, CEO of infinitii ai. "Core & Main is a national player in the water and wastewater industry in the U.S. operating over 300 branches nationwide, making them an extraordinary strategic partner for us."
The City of Vancouver has signed up suppliers to expand its False Creek Neighbourhood Utility that provides heat and hot water around the Olympic Village, which will triple its existing footprint. The $100 million project will see Vancouver expand the system, which harvests waste heat from hot water running through sewage pipes as a key emissions-reduction measure, from 3.2 megawatts to 9.8 megawatts. And its capacity will be increased from servicing 600,000 square metres of building space, including Science World and Emily Carr University of Art and Design, to an additional 1.9 million square metres of new development in the Southeast False Creek, False Creek Flats, Northeast False Creek and Mount Pleasant.
