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.
The ongoing drought in many parts of B.C. is causing some rivers in the province's northern Interior to reach their driest mid-October levels in years. In Prince George, the unusually low waters have locals worried. Harriet Schoeter moved to the northern B.C. city 60 years ago, and loves walking the shore where the Fraser and Nechako rivers meet. This week, the water was so low she could almost walk right across.
This week, Eby named his first cabinet as premier, with former energy and mines minister Bruce Ralston taking on forestry and Nathan Cullen replacing Josie Osborne as the minister for water, land and resource stewardship. The new ministry was put in place in February. The tone of the letters appears to usher in the type of science-based, holistic approach to conservation and biodiversity in the province that people like Wu have been asking for from the B.C. government. "We have seen the impacts of short-term thinking on the British Columbia land base — exhausted forests, poisoned water, and contaminated sites," wrote Eby is his mandate letter to Cullen.
On the rack in the backyard, the little red canoe is withdrawn, overturned and not liking it, and the crest of snow on the canvas is visible along the tumblehome. It yearns for open water now closing in on this writer. Back in 2007, after much input from listeners and a panel of judges, the CBC Radio show Sounds Like Canada picked the canoe as one of the country's seven wonders. One of those judges was Roy MacGregor. “It may have been the promise of a railroad to the Pacific that made Canada whole,” writes Roy in his book, Original Highways: Travelling the Great Rivers of Canada, "but it was rivers that carried the people west and made that railroad necessary.”
A conservation authority is working to update flood hazard maps for parts of eastern Ontario, which will help municipal governments assess the risk of flooding when planning for the future. The South Nation Conservation (SNC), an organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of ecosystems in the region, is leading the efforts to update the maps, which hasn't been done for many years.
After two weeks without significant rainfall and a lack of precipitation in the forecast, May 2021 could be one of the driest months on record in the Ottawa area. David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said 13 millimetres of precipitation rain has fallen in the Ottawa Valley region this month. That's 11 millimetres fewer than the 24 that fell in 1944 — the lowest recorded amount in the last 75 years.
For decades, Pictou Landing First Nation has lived uneasily near an industrial plant emitting brown, foul-smelling waste and the effluent treatment facility they say causes respiratory and skin illnesses. Now, the mill is being mothballed. Ms. Francis, a member of Pictou Landing First Nation, fought for years to stop toxic wastewater from the Northern Pulp plant from being pumped into a tidal estuary next to her community. After decades of court battles, environmental studies and protests, people on the Nova Scotia reserve are hopeful they may one day be able trust their water and land again.
