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.
According to analysis published recently in the journal Nature Sustainability and led by the University of Saskatchewan (USask), most of the world’s protected areas—areas like nature preserves and national parks where human activity is restricted—have ecosystems that rely on groundwater. Of these protected areas, 85 per cent depend on groundwater from beyond protection boundaries, leaving ecosystems at risk from exterior contamination and overuse.
