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.
New Alberta government research has found windblown dust from mountaintop removal coal mines has polluted a pristine alpine lake to the point where its waters are as contaminated as lakes downwind from the oilsands. The paper, published last week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, concludes that it's crucial to consider more than just downstream effects from such mines.
The heat wave that scorched most of Western Canada last week accelerated the melting of alpine glaciers, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta told the Calgary Eyeopener on Tuesday. "It's very concerning," said Jeffrey Kavanaugh, an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences. In the mountains, temperatures cool down about 1 C with every 100 metres of elevation gain — but when record-breaking temperatures swept through the Rockies, even the highest alpine regions couldn't escape it.
