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 mayor of Princeton, B.C., says half the town is under water after extreme rains pushed the Tulameen and Similkameen rivers to overflow their banks and dikes. "The water level came up so fast that we couldn't get ahead of it. It just kept coming and coming," said Spencer Coyne. "There's a number of [dike] breaches. Houses are under water, cars are gone." Coyne said water levels were about 150 centimetres higher than the previous worst flood in memory, which hit the town in 1995.
