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 Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute is recommending that governments across the country develop a national plan to sustainably manage and use water for the agri-food sector. In a report released Monday, the institute called for ambitious commitments from governments and partnerships with stakeholders to prioritize the critical natural resource.
The International Joint Commission, a body that manages water rights along the US-Canada border, has confirmed its IT security was targeted, after a ransomware gang claimed it stole 80 GB of data from the organization. "The International Joint Commission has experienced a cybersecurity incident, and we are working with relevant organizations to investigate and resolve the situation," a spokesperson for the org told The Register.
About 90% of water samples taken over the last 10 years from the Great Lakes contain microplastic levels that are unsafe for wildlife, a new peer-reviewed paper from the University of Toronto finds. About 20% of those samples are at the highest level of risk, but the study’s authors say the damage can be reversed if the US and Canada quickly act. “Ninety per cent is a lot,” said Eden Hataley, a University of Toronto researcher and study co-author. “We need to answer some basic questions by monitoring … so we can quantify risks to wildlife and humans.”
From great white sharks around Quebec's Îles-de-la-Madeleine to lobsters conquering new territory, oceanographers say the warming of the Gulf of St. Lawrence is having an impact on the creatures that live in its unique ecosystem. Data from Fisheries and Oceans Canada show that deepwater temperatures have been increasing overall in the gulf since 2009. In 2022, gulf-wide average temperatures hit new record highs at depths of 150 to 300 metres, and passed the threshold of 7 C at 300 metres for the first time. Average monthly temperatures at the sea surface also set new records in August and September, the data showed.
When Ottawa was hit by more than 75 millimetres of rain last week it filled a $232 million sewage tunnel, sending nearly 316 million litres of raw sewage into the Ottawa River. Unfortunately, it's not unexpected or unusual. "It was always known that if there were very large storms the city would be faced with a choice of either flooding sewage into people's basements or into the river," explained Dianne Saxe, a former environmental commissioner and the last person to hold that provincial post.
It’s an area of farmland Ryan Maurer says is worth as much as a Lamborghini. High run-off flooded one of his fields in spring 2022, leaving shallow pools of water. This was before the farmer opened ditches to drain it. “Would you take your Lamborghini and park it in a slough?” Maurer asked on his farm near Grenfell, Sask., about 125 kilometres east of Regina.
Data for water management across sectors is now open for public use through a platform by the Water Security Agency of Saskatchewan, but at least one group is skeptical of how useful it will be for their businesses. The Saskatchewan government earlier this week announced the launch of what it calls a GeoHub portal for access to data for better water management. The portal combines geographic information systems to provide greater access to information, primarily when making decisions around agricultural operations, planning, or research in the province.
A report from Environment and Climate Change Canada said Ontario and Quebec have the poorest water quality in Canada, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “Calculated trends using data from 2002 to 2020 show no site with improved water quality,” said the report. “During that same period, water quality deteriorated at 24 sites.” Water quality showed no improvement in the past two decades because of raw sewage dumped into waterways. Regional waterways with worsening quality included Ottawa’s Rideau River, Toronto’s Humber and Don rivers, and Quebec’s Chateauguay, Jacques-Cartier, and la Petite Nation rivers.
An analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data by Texas A&M University has found elevated levels of nine chemicals that “may be of health concern” to residents of East Palestine, Ohio. The small town of 5,000 played host to a nightmarish scenario early this month when a train carrying hazardous materials crashed, leaking toxins into the soil, water and air.
The Government of Saskatchewan is putting $1.9 million towards remote monitoring technology for rural water treatment facilities. The 10 projects will go through the Saskatchewan Advantage Innovation Fund (SAIF) and the Agtech Growth Fund (AGF), run under the auspices of the Innovation Saskatchewan government agency. One of the projects will be led by Saskatoon-based Delco Water, which is working with rural municipalities and First Nations, including the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, to develop and pilot remote sensing technologies.
A new environmental scorecard says Canada's biggest cities have lower scores than most small and medium-sized municipalities, but a closer look at the data reveals some surprises. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environment International, rates 30 of the country's largest cities and towns on nine indicators related to health, including air quality, heat and cold waves, ultraviolet radiation, and access to green spaces. The results are compiled in the new Canadian Environmental Quality Index, produced by Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Canada is set to make another “giant leap for mankind.” For the first time in history, a Canadian rover will be sent to the moon to help in the international search for water ice, a key component needed for the future of human space exploration. According to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the rover is the outcome of decades of building and refining Canadian expertise in rover technology.
Today, the Government of Canada, along with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), announced an investment of $348,460 in seven Nova Scotia communities. This funding will help them make data-driven decisions about key infrastructure and ensure long-term infrastructure performance. The Municipality of the District of East Hants is receiving $50,000 to assess current capacity of a water treatment plant and a wastewater treatment plant and compare that capacity to future treatment requirements. It will also collect asset management data for computer modeling of existing water, wastewater, and stormwater systems to determine asset needs.
A mountain of data will be needed to get the full picture of climate change impacts on the West Kootenay ecosystem, say planners, scientists, and members of the region’s environmental community. To draw attention to two web-based tools for water and climate data in the Columbia Basin, Nelson-based non-governmental organization Living Lakes Canada brought together a panel of local experts on Oct. 12. “The idea is that we don’t have enough data on our watersheds in the Columbia Basin to make informed decisions about how to react to climate change,” said Nicole Trigg, communications director for Living Lakes Canada. “This was a great opening conversation on a very important topic.”
In fact, Greater Victoria is so parched it has just set a record for the driest period in its recorded weather history, said Steven Murray, a local weather analyst who chronicles weather patterns at Gonzales Observatory in Victoria. The federal Gonzales station opened in 1914, but data for the area goes back to 1898, when weather patterns were collected at a former station on Cook Street. It is considered one of the longest-running set of measurements on the Pacific coast of North America.
What may be the broadest and longest study to date has found Canada's Arctic Ocean is growing more acidic up to four times faster than any other sea on the planet. The acidification, linked to the loss of sea ice, will have unknown repercussions for the life in those waters, said Wei-Jun Cai, an oceanographer at the University of Delaware and co-author of the study in the journal Science.
$15.25 million is for GWFO: GWFO is an integrated network of 76 instrumented basins, rivers, lakes and wetlands, 27 deployable observation systems, and 31 state-of-the-art water laboratories. Together they provide data to quickly address flood, drought and water quality issues, GFWO operates across seven provinces and territories, including the Great Lakes Basin. USask leads the nine-university collaboration that operates the network to monitor and help support the development of solutions for the impending water crisis that faces Canadians due to climate change, poor water management, the proliferation of toxic contaminants, and environmental degradation.
Today, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, welcomed the latest release of data on the status of Canada's water infrastructure through Canada's Core Public Infrastructure (CCPI) survey, for reference year 2020. The survey supports an evidence and results-based approach to public infrastructure policies, programs and investment decisions. The CCPI presents a statistically accurate and comprehensive landscape of public infrastructure in Canada. It provides communities across Canada with the tools and support they need to make evidence-based decisions for well-planned, modern public infrastructure that will help create healthier, safer and stronger communities.
On Friday. the city Iqaluit declared state of emergency following a precarious water situation, writes Reuters. The city is located in the territory of Nunavut, in the far north in Canada. The water level in the local river Apex is historically low after a year of little rain, according to data from the last 40 years. Local authorities fear that there will not be enough water in the reservoir to supply the approximately 7800 inhabitants until winter when the river freezes over. The city is now seeking license to pump more water than normally allowed from the Apex river, as well as tapping an additional water source.
A First Nation is working alongside a B.C. tech company to learn more about how climate change is affecting the waters it harvests food from. In an effort to preserve and even build up capacity for seafood harvesting, the T'Sou-ke First Nation on southern Vancouver Island turned to Victoria-based MarineLabs, which collects real-time data about the ocean, about 18 months ago to better understand what's going on in the Sooke Basin and other areas it uses.
