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.
Effective since October 1, 2023, C3 Water Inc. ("C3 Water"), joined CIMA+, one of Canada's largest privately-owned consulting engineering firms. "This acquisition is in line with CIMA+'s growth strategy throughout Canada, with a particular focus on sustainable engineering and Ontario's needs.", said Steeve Fiset, Chief Strategy Officer, CIMA+.
City councillors in Whitehorse say they want more information before moving ahead with designing a $39-million upgrade to the city's water treatment system. Councillors heard last week from city staff that the upgrade would add a new filtration system — needed because the city's groundwater quality has been changing. The design itself, which councillors voted Tuesday to delay, would cost about $2 million and be done by the end of 2025.
The total cost of upgrades to the largest of Winnipeg's sewage treatment plants has risen to $2.2 billion and will likely increase further, according to city financial status reports and previous budget documents. This is leading to renewed concerns about the cash required to continue improvements to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre, which processes sewage from the Kildonans, Transcona, Elmwood, the North End, the West End, downtown neighbourhoods and parts of River Heights, St. James and St. Boniface.
Ashlee Howarth, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received $240,780 to design and synthesize new materials that can capture water from the air. Howarth’s project will develop metal–organic frameworks, which are porous materials that can capture water in the air in both humid and arid climates. They work by attracting and binding water molecules to their surface, forming a thin film. As climate change threatens our freshwater supply, these innovative materials can generate clean, drinkable water in remote communities in Canada or be integrated into existing municipal infrastructure in urban areas.
The province says it recently concluded almost four weeks of online public consultations aimed at gathering input on design concepts for future public spaces and parkland at the site. The results of those consultations and previous public engagement events will be shared in 2023. Public access to the waterfront has been a major source of conflict to this point and the push to privatize a large portion of Ontario Place has those opposed sounding the alarm along the lake even louder.
Mapleton council has postponed on choosing a design for the new water tank in Drayton due to the expensive pricing of the proposed designs. At Tuesday’s meeting, Coun. Paul Douglas moved a motion to postpone on choosing a design and to direct staff to discuss different options with the designer to make the designs more cost-effective. “Council wanted to be more fiscally responsible as the designs were too expensive, so they directed staff to gather more information on the options council gave during the meeting and new pricing,” explained township CAO Manny Baron on the phone.
BBGI Global Infrastructure S.A. has completed an investment in InPower BC General Partnership, the entity responsible for delivering the John Hart Generating Station Replacement Project in Canada. The company said it made the CA$41 million investment through its existing strategic partnership with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. The public-private partnership project consisted of the design, construction, financing, maintenance and rehabilitation of a new three-turbine, 132MW hydroelectric power generation station on the Campbell River, British Columbia, including a three generating unit underground powerhouse, 2.1 km of water passage tunnels and a water bypass system to protect downstream fish habitat. The new infrastructure replaces the outdated above ground facilities which were built in 1947 with a more reliable, seismically robust and environmentally friendly facility. The project is Canada's first public-private partnership project in the hydropower sector.
La Glace Community Water System: The $1.3 million project for the La Glace Community Water System will now be proceeding to tender. The tender results will be brought back to council in the future for approval. “Alberta Environment and Parks has confirmed the groundwater source to be high quality, enabling the design, which is 90 per cent complete, to be simplified to reduce redundancies and associated costs,” said the county.
“They cut corners every day, every day,” said Justin Gee, vice-president of First Nations Engineering Services Ltd. Gee said he encountered these recurring problems while overseeing the work of a construction firm, Kingdom Construction Limited (KCL), building a water treatment plant 10 years ago in Wasauksing First Nation, along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, about 250 kilometres north of Toronto. “You have to be on them every step of the way,” said Gee, who was the contract administrator on the project. “You can’t leave them on their own.”
At the community's request, Indigenous Services Canada has replaced the top federal bureaucrat working with Neskantaga First Nation during its current state of emergency. Assistant deputy minister Joanne Wilkinson has taken over from Ontario regional director general Anne Scotton as the liaison between department officials and Neskantaga — a fly-in community about 450 km north of Thunder Bay, Ont., that has been under a boil-water advisory for 25 years.
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller has overruled a senior departmental official over the framing of an investigation into Neskantaga First Nation's 25-year-long water crisis, CBC News has learned. Anne Scotton, the department's Ontario regional director general, informed Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias on Thursday afternoon by email that the terms of reference for the investigation would be finalized soon, and that a consultant had been chosen to manage the third-party probe. There was a line in the attached document for the chief's signature.
The Saskatchewan government has announced a $4-billion plan to expand irrigation out of the Lake Diefenbaker reservoir. Work is set to begin immediately, and will be completed in three phases over the next decade. CBC reporter Jason Warick spoke Friday with John Pomeroy, a Canada Research chair and director of the University of Saskatchewan's Global Water Futures program.
