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.
Two Abbotsford mushroom farms owned by the same man have been ordered to pay $650,000 in fines for polluting local creeks. H.Q. Mushroom Farm received fines totalling $385,000 for two counts of depositing a deleterious substance in October 2015 and April 2016. Delfresh Mushroom Farm has been fined $265,000 for the same two counts in August and November 2018.
P.E.I. environment officials are mulling whether to create a water-use buffer given that farmers will be able to apply to construct more high-capacity wells under the province's impending irrigation strategy. Currently, regulations allow groundwater wells to draw down a waterway by 35 per cent of a stream's base flow in August and September. But Bruce Raymond, manager of water and air monitoring at the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action, says officials are weighing whether to only permit 90 per cent of that draw down.
