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.
Calgary is lifting city-wide outdoor water restrictions put into place this summer. The Stage 1 outdoor water restrictions were declared on Aug. 15 amid dry conditions and record-low natural flow levels on the Bow and Elbow rivers. At the time, the city said it was an important measure to help sustain Calgary’s water supply in the Glenmore Reservoir.
As of Sept. 30, according to Agriculture Canada's most recent update, 72 per cent of the country and 69 per cent of Canada's agricultural landscape was considered either "abnormally dry" or in "moderate to exceptional drought." But drought's effects aren't felt only in the summer. For cattle producers, winter is when the toll can be most severe, as animals' caloric needs are higher and grazing land is frozen or snow-covered. "Certainly, the impacts are carrying on for people that utilize the resources that were depleted during the summer," said Trevor Hadwen, a Regina-based agroclimate specialist with Agriculture Canada.
The City of Chilliwack is moving to stage 3 watering restrictions to conserve water into the fall after a discussion and vote by council Tuesday afternoon (July 19). City council approved extending the summer watering restriction period until Oct. 15, as well as instituting new triggers for implementing further restrictions. “As dry conditions continue throughout the province, there are lots of small actions we can all take to help conserve water,” said Mayor Ken Popove. “For example, you can take shorter showers, turn off the tap when you brush your teeth, only run full loads of laundry or dishes, and regularly check your home for leaks.”
Despite recent rainfall over Calgary, conditions are still drier than usual, leading to concerns over low water flows in the region. "The flows in both the Bow and Elbow Rivers continue to be well below normal for this time of year due to the low snowpacks and early snowmelt in the Bow and Elbow River Basins, as well as ongoing dry conditions," the City of Calgary said in a statement Friday. "Reservoirs upstream of Calgary are currently filling and the Glenmore Reservoir is being held at full supply level to proactively manage water supply in anticipation of a hot, dry summer."
Despite seeing promising crop yields this year, there's a heightened sense of pessimism among Alberta farmers as the harvest season wraps up. Farmers said that barley and wheat crops were great, but the excessive heat and above-average temperatures over the summer created issues for other crops, like canola — and it's leaving them worried for the year ahead. "The crop utilized every ounce of moisture that was in the soil this year to produce what we got and our farming practices helped us produce what we have," said Larry Woolliams with Airdrie-based Woolliams farms. "But there is zero reserve."
The current and forecasted continued warm and dry weather in our area has led the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) to ramp up patrols to enforce current watering rules and educate residents on conservation measures. The SCRD introduced Stage 2 measures in late July for both the Chapman and South Pender systems, while Eastbourne is at Stage 3 and North Pender remains at Stage 1.
Conservation Halton is calling on residents to voluntarily reduce their water consumption by 10 per cent due to the dry conditions currently being experienced by the region. In a news release issued on Tuesday, Aug. 2 the local conservation authority noted that between May and July the Halton watershed received 20 per cent less rain than normal for this time of year.
The Grand River Conservation Authority is urging people and businesses along the watershed to drop their water usage by 20 per cent. This week, the low water response team placed the entire watershed at level two. It means the authority is asking all water users — municipalities, aggregate operations, golf courses, water bottlers, farms for irrigation and private users — to decrease the amount of water they use. The last time a level two was declared for the entire watershed was 2016.
It could be wetter than normal in the coming months for parts of Saskatchewan. However, Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency (WSA) said Wednesday that even if there is an above-normal snowpack, the chance of an above-normal runoff is not likely. The agency said that is due to dry conditions at freeze-up. A minimal runoff last spring, followed by a mostly hot and dry summer, has left many agricultural areas of the province with drier than normal conditions. Conditions are driest in the Saskatoon area, extending out to Rosetown, Leader and the Maple Creek area.
When the water level in the Mactaquac headpond unexpectedly dropped by more than a metre, it caught a lot of people off guard. "My boat is trapped," said Jean Paul Arseneau in Lower Queensbury. Arseneau keeps his boat on a lift to protect it from waves. But when the water level dropped, the boat was stranded. "It's sitting on a lift up in the air, it takes about three feet of water to take it down," said Arseneau. "And there's not a foot of water, so you can't put it down."
We start with a weather update, where a water shortage in Manitoba is creating challenges for the province’s cattle producers. “We’ve got surface water conditions that are the lowest that I (can) recall,” Tyler Fulton, president of Manitoba Beef Producers, told the Western Producer. “If the current moisture situation… is not unprecedented, we’d have to go back 40 years to find something similar.” Dry conditions also have farmers in British Columbia’s Saanich Peninsula are irrigating early thanks to an unusually warm spring. CTV News reports. Meanwhile, south of the border, drought conditions in the Western U.S. are worsening. As CNN reports, drought is being experienced in 88 per cent of the region — with all areas of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada listed as being in a drought.
