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.
It’s something we use everyday — couldn’t survive without, actually — and often take for granted. Yet freshwater could run out by 2040 at our current rate of consumption, says a report by BofA Global Research. “Some 75 per cent of our planet is covered with water, yet less than 1 per cent is usable, and even this is depleting quickly,” said BofA equity strategists led by Haim Israel.
A bypass system that allowed people in Iqaluit to drink the city's tap water again after it was contaminated with fuel could have come online earlier, according to a report from a third-party review of the 2021 water crisis. The report prepared by Toronto-based consulting firm DPRA for Nunavut's Department of Community and Government Services (CGS) details how disagreements between the city and territorial government affected the response to the crisis. The report was issued in May and recently provided to CBC News by CGS.
Thames Water may have to be taken over by the government if it runs out of money. But why is the UK's largest water company facing a crisis - and are other firms facing similar problems? When the company was privatised in 1989, it had no debt. But over the years it borrowed heavily and is currently £14bn in debt.
On Tuesday, an emotional call came into our Chilliwack office, along with a video that was hard to watch. A small school of coho salmon struggled to push from one tiny pool of water to another in a futile effort to spawn. The cool, clean water they needed to survive and lay their eggs was nowhere to be found. Scenes like this are playing out across B.C. as this record-setting drought kills salmon, trees and other flora and fauna en masse.
Water testing in the village of Roche Percee has revealed E. coli contamination, and a boil-water order has been initiated, the provincial Ministry of Health said Friday The order is applicable for the entire community and other individuals who access water from Roche Percee, about 20 kilometres southeast of Estevan. "It's been an ongoing crisis here for a while," Mayor Jay Riedel said. "We've gone through a flood in 2011 when six to seven feet of water was here, which compromised a lot of stuff in this area. "Our water levels in wells are low and without the rain, when we need to keep them full, we're usually down at the bottom all the time."
The price of climate change is real. This crisis has already taken lives in extreme heat waves, and is increasing risks to Canadians from flooding, and from respiratory illnesses like asthma. Bold, urgent action is not only needed – the science is clear that it will make a real difference. Many of these health impacts can be prevented by scaling up efforts to adapt to climate change in an intersectional manner—both in Canadian society at large and in health systems. Strong adaptation measures can prevent potential health impacts and make health systems and facilities more resilient to climate change.
In the summer, the Sylvia Grinnell River near Iqaluit is a popular spot to fish for Arctic char where ice-cold water cascades over rocky ledges. Now, with thick layers of ice and snow covering the flowing water below, it has become one of the city's main water sources for drinking and cooking. The other comes in thousands of plastic water bottles that arrive by plane.
For Iqaluit youths Joseph Ashoona and Deion Pearce, the recent suicide of a beloved friend in their hockey community was their breaking point. “This is enough, we’re drawing the line here,” Pearce said in a joint video interview with CTVNews.ca Wednesday. “We’ve lost too many friends, close friends [and] family members.” The COVID-19 pandemic, the recent water crisis in Iqaluit and the decades-long housing, health and mental health crises are all factors contributing to Nunavut’s ongoing suicide epidemic.
Neskantaga First Nation is taking Ontario to court looking for "ground rules" on how the province should consult and accommodate Indigenous communities that are in a state of crisis. The remote Oji-Cree First Nation, located about 430 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, has been under a boil-water advisory for 26 years and a state of emergency since 2013, when seven people died by suicide in less than a year. Those issues have been compounded by the pandemic, leaving Neskantaga ill-equipped to engage in what the province has presented as consultation on a project to build a road through its territory to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire, community leaders say.
Seven weeks into Iqaluit's drinking water crisis, the Canadian Armed Forces is finalizing plans to move its water purification efforts in Iqaluit to an existing military facility, as the city's water remains unsafe to drink. The original plan, which involved using a reverse osmosis water purifier at the Sylvia Grinnell River was waylaid Nov. 22 by a winter storm that snapped the frame of a military tent that sheltered clean water bladders from the reverse osmosis system.
On LinkedIn, flypop CEO Nino Singh Judge posted that the twinjet conducted a mission to Iqaluit amid the crisis the Inuit and Nunavummiut communities are facing there. The problems revolve around housing and clean drinking water. The BBC reports that the area has not had clean water for a month. Notably, a state of emergency was declared on October 12th, and since then, it’s been noted that the water is not even safe after boiling.
Many smaller communities rely solely on water trucks to deliver clean water to home. So when the trucks break down, it becomes a headache and even a crisis. That was the case for Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik, in northern Quebec, where recently, all three water trucks broke down and were in disrepair for almost three weeks. "It was a difficult thing because all the water trucks were broken plus all the parts were being backordered from the company we ordered parts from," said Mayor David Annanack, adding that COVID-19 was also causing an issue at the factories where they get parts.
Unprecedented high temperatures and wildfires have hit British Columbia's agriculture sector hard this year. Another heat wave is in the forecast this week and the crisis has become a "perfect storm," according to ranchers struggling with skyrocketing winter feed costs, depleted water sources and wildfires. "Our pastures are looking pretty brown right now and we've had about an inch of rain in the last week," said Judy Madden, a Dawson Creek cattle rancher and president of the South Peace Cattlemen's Association. "No one got the rain they needed. The fear here is that we're going to lose a pile of our breeding herd."
Concerns about water access in Indigenous communities go well beyond persistent drinking water advisories, two Indigenous leaders say. Both Iqaluit Deputy Mayor Janet Pitsiulaaq Brewster and Samson Cree Councillor Mario Swampy said there's still more work to do in the wake of the $8 billion settlement reached recently in two class action lawsuits against the federal government over boil water advisories.
A First Nation community in northwestern Ontario that has been under a boil water advisory for more than 25 years says it is evacuating some of its members after a new issue with its water supply was discovered. In a tweet just before 5 p.m. ET, Neskantaga First Nation Chief Chris Moonias said it is “disheartening and sad” that he has had to evacuate the elderly, infants, chronically ill and vulnerable people from the community for a second time during his tenure.
With tears in her eyes, Peltier has also pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly about the ongoing threat that oil pipelines pose to the environment, specifically clean drinking water. “I’m kind of still holding him accountable because I’m not going to forget that,” she said. “When you think about Canada, you don’t imagine having a crisis or issue this big because we’re looked at as a rich country." The Trudeau government promised to end all long-term water boil advisories on First Nations reserves by March 2021. As of last March, 88 were lifted, but 61 still remain. Even through the pandemic, Peltier’s activism hasn’t stopped. Along with completing her school work, she’s also been empowering other youth through online events and speaking engagements.
Kenora MP Eric Melillo says he doesn't accept the federal government's decision to delay, when it comes to providing clean drinking water to all First Nation members. "This is a crisis that has been going on forever in the history of Canada, and yet it has not been responded to. We're going to keep the pressure on, and we want to see them commit to meeting their deadline," he said yesterday.
Thousands of Quebecers could be getting misleading information about lead contamination in the water coming out of their taps because the province uses a sampling method that underestimates the true level of exposure, Global News has found through surveys and 84 tests of residential drinking water conducted in five cities across the province. The revelations are based on a collaborative investigation by a team of two dozen journalists from Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism, Global News and Le Devoir. The journalists fanned out across the province to knock on hundreds of doors, taking water samples for testing that revealed lead levels often higher than city workers had told residents.
During an emotional community meeting Tuesday evening, residents of a northern Ontario First Nation grappling with water problems demanded their chief and council ask the Canadian military to step in. Attawapiskat Band Coun. Rosie Koostachin said community members passed a resolution at the meeting calling on their band council to request Ottawa bring in the Canadian Armed Forces' Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to provide clean water.
