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.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising a new version of the Canada Water Act – and one of the improvements, he says, will be in the area of Indigenous rights. What that might mean for Indigenous people and communities is the focus of APTN Investigates: Liquid Law. Earlier this year at the fork of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Winnipeg, the prime minister announced not just the updated Water Act – but a new agency to administer the regulation of water across the country.
It took seven years, but now Prince Edward Island finally proclaimed a Water Act. There are certainly reasons to celebrate this. The act contains guiding values that recognize water as a common good and a public trust. There is acknowledgment of the precautionary principle and the need to preserve water for future generations. Yet, how much the act will help to remedy the poor track record of the government and its departments in protecting PEI’s waters remains to be seen.
Officials with P.E.I.'s Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action laid out a bare-bones plan Thursday for how water could be shared among various users — including farmers — once the province's moratorium on new high-capacity irrigation wells ends. The King government quietly signalled the end of the 19-year moratorium earlier this month, introducing changes to regulations under the Water Act that could be implemented in September.
P.E.I.'s Environment Minister Steven Myers says the province has all the data it needs to end the province's 19-year moratorium on high capacity irrigation wells, and says the moratorium won't be needed once the province's Water Act comes into effect June 16. That comes after 19 years of successive P.E.I. governments — including that of current Premier Dennis King — saying they needed more research in order to decide what to do with the moratorium.
A special interest group is, by definition, “a group of people or an organization seeking or receiving special advantages, typically through political lobbying”. I have been involved in the development of the Water Act since its humble beginnings in 2015. I read all the public comments and heard many of the presentations. A very large majority – not a vocal minority, as these organizations repeatedly claim – expressed genuine concerns over the threats to water in the province.
The Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Water is concerned the Water Act might not improve things if the province goes against its own rules, as it did approving farmers' use of surface water for irrigation from the Dunk River during a drought last August. "What worries us is when there are demands for water, is the government going to bend and break their own rules?" said coalition chair Catherine O'Brien.
Opposition Green MLA Lynne Lund has asked the province to commit to an interim moratorium on large holding ponds used for irrigation. Lund raised the issue in the legislature Tuesday, saying she'd become aware of a new water holding pond for agriculture being built in Queens County. She said she's been told the pond will require several wells to fill it, arguing it will have the same effect as a high capacity well.
The Water Act, passed in the P.E.I. Legislature but not yet proclaimed, was one of the more divisive issues of the first leaders debate of the provincial election campaign.
More than 250 people packed into an auditorium at UPEI to listen to the leaders discuss environmental issues, at a forum organized by Island environmental groups.
Topics ranged from protecting soil quality, to watershed group funding, to increasing the number of protected areas on P.E.I., to promoting the Island's natural history.
