Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

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.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

aquatic life

BQE Water Signs Multi-Year Operating Agreement for Mine Water Treatment Services at Minto Mine

BQE Water Signs Multi-Year Operating Agreement for Mine Water Treatment Services at Minto Mine

BQE Water Inc. (TSX-V: BQE), a leader in the treatment and management of mine impacted waters, has entered into an Operating Services Agreement with Minto Metals Corp to provide plant operations services for an existing water treatment plant at Minto Mine located approximately 240 km northwest of Whitehorse, Yukon through to 2024. Under the agreement, BQE Water will be responsible for clean water production at the mine where the final effluent must meet stringent requirements not only for metals but ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to protect the aquatic life in the receiving environment. Included in the operations services provided by BQE Water will be on-site technical supervision, coordination with Minto's environmental and metallurgical team to maximize the volume of water discharged into the environment, operator training, and on-site and off-site engineering support.

Mount Polley tailings pond breach still affecting aquatic life in Quesnel River

Mount Polley tailings pond breach still affecting aquatic life in Quesnel River

Every winter since the tailings pond breach at the Mount Polley mine in 2014, copper-laden sediment from the bottom of Quesnel Lake has been re-suspended in the water column and has flowed into the Quesnel River affecting aquatic life in the watershed, according to a new paper by UNBC researchers Phil Owens and Ellen Petticrew. The tailings facility at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine failed on Aug. 4, 2014, sending 25 million cubic metres of solids and water from the mine site into the local environment and researchers have spent the past eight years monitoring the environment after the breach.

Road salt levels in some local creeks toxic to aquatic life, says riverkeeper

Road salt levels in some local creeks toxic to aquatic life, says riverkeeper

The amount of road salt that people, businesses, and cities are using over the winter is likely too much and is definitely hurting local waterways, according to the Ottawa Riverkeeper. The organization began monitoring how much road salt is making its way into local creeks last winter as part of its road salt monitoring pilot project. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment has established federal guidelines around the amount of chloride — which is partly what salt breaks down into when it dissolves in water — in waterbodies.

Contaminant from coal mines already high in some Alberta rivers: unreported data

Contaminant from coal mines already high in some Alberta rivers: unreported data

The province's plan for large-scale expansion of the industry is fueling widespread criticism that includes concerns over selenium pollution. The data shows that same contaminant has been found for years at high levels downstream of three mines and never publicly reported. The findings raise questions about Alberta Environment, said a former senior official who has seen the data. "There were lots of [selenium] numbers and it was consistently above the water quality guidelines and in many cases way higher," said Bill Donahue, the department's one-time executive director of science. "Why did Alberta Environment sit on these data for easily the last 10 to 15 years?"

How microbes could help clean up Nova Scotia's abandoned mines

How microbes could help clean up Nova Scotia's abandoned mines

Researchers from three Maritime universities are hoping microbes collected from the bottom of a lake near an abandoned gold mine in Dartmouth, N.S., will provide a model for how to clean up contaminated sites across the province in a quicker and less-intrusive way. Last May, a research team took a boat to the middle of Lake Charles, not far from the former Montague gold mine, where extensive mining took place from 1860 to about 1940.

Research finds fishing gear a major source of ocean microplastics in Atlantic Canada

Research finds fishing gear a major source of ocean microplastics in Atlantic Canada

Two years ago, researchers collected microplastics from pristine surface waters at three nearshore locations in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, finding tiny and unrecognizable fragments, threads and fibres in every trawl. Chemical analysis has now identified the synthetic polymers that made up those miniscule pieces of plastic and confirmed what was expected: the microplastics were shed from easily recognized sources. "Fishing gear, fishing rope, fragments of nets and particles that would come from that kind of activity, that is a big source of microplastics," said Ariel Smith, the coastal and marine team lead for Coastal Action, the environmental group that is leading a three-year Atlantic Canadian microplastics research project.

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