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.
An Iqaluit city official told CBC News that an underground fuel spill found near the water treatment plant could explain why the city had to declare an emergency due to fuel-contaminated drinking water. "The team located an underground spill that showed signs of historic fuel adjacent to the water treatment plant in an inaccessible, below-ground void," Amy Elgersma, Iqaluit's chief administrative officer, told Mary Tatty, host of CBC's noon hour program, Nipivut.
From lead pipes to PFAS, drinking water contamination is a major issue plaguing cities and towns all around the Great Lakes. Cleaning up contaminants and providing safe water to everyone is an ongoing public health struggle. Keep up with drinking water-related developments in the Great Lakes area. A US Steel Plant recently spilled iron into Lake Michigan, forcing the Indiana Dunes National Park to shut down all of its beaches. Just three weeks prior, the corporation was placed under a federal consent decree, meaning it needed to enhance its environmental influence. Studies have proven that high iron levels in drinking water can cause iron poisoning and ultimately damage both the brain and the liver.
Wildfire season is getting longer in Alberta every year with climate change, scorching land and polluting the air with thick smoke. But, the City of Calgary is studying another, perhaps less obvious, impact of wildfires — drinking water contamination. There haven't been any major fires in the Bow and Elbow river watersheds, upstream of the City of Calgary, for years. But, there are fears a major fire west of the city could wash burned material into the rivers, impacting the drinking water supply for the city's 1.4 million residents.
