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.
Water is life, water is food, leave no one behind. That’s the theme of a conference taking place in Vancouver Monday that brings together experts and policymakers to tackle water scarcity, and to find ways to protect this vital resource as the planet heats up from global warming. UBC, SFU and the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization are hosting the official North America World Food Day event at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
The carcasses of 120 river dolphins have been found floating in a tributary of the Amazon River over the last week in circumstances that experts suspect were caused by severe drought and heat. Low river levels during a severe drought have heated water in stretches to temperatures that are intolerable for the dolphins, researchers believe. Thousands of fish have died recently on Amazon rivers due to a lack of oxygen in the water.
"We have groundwater levels dropping dramatically. We have river levels that are very, very low," said Tom Pypker, chair of the department of natural resource sciences at Thompson Rivers University. "This has implications for farmers who need to extract water to irrigate their crops. This has implications for cities that need to draw water out of these surface water bodies to supply their population."
A team of experts is working to better understand the spread of blue-green algae in Alberta lakes by combining satellite technology with near-simultaneous water sampling. The project, funded through Alberta Innovates, is a collaboration between several groups, including Alberta Lake Management Society (ALMS), the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI), and researcher Rolf Vinebrooke from the University of Alberta.
About 90% of water samples taken over the last 10 years from the Great Lakes contain microplastic levels that are unsafe for wildlife, a new peer-reviewed paper from the University of Toronto finds. About 20% of those samples are at the highest level of risk, but the study’s authors say the damage can be reversed if the US and Canada quickly act. “Ninety per cent is a lot,” said Eden Hataley, a University of Toronto researcher and study co-author. “We need to answer some basic questions by monitoring … so we can quantify risks to wildlife and humans.”
In portions of Halifax and central Nova Scotia, as an estimated 250 millimetres of rain fell last weekend, similar confusion and improvisation was unfolding, in what some experts say is the latest example of the province's inadequate state of preparation for climate disasters. The mayor of the Municipality of West Hants has said many residents reported they didn't receive any emergency alert at all because of the area's spotty cellular service.
It can be said that British Columbia is Canada’s two-season province, with West Coast living consisting of a cycle between rain and fire. Fire season has arrived and experts say it’s time to put your rainy day habits behind you. “All we can really do is adapt to more extreme drought,” said John Richardson, a professor in the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia. “We have to remember that same water is used for drinking, bathing, flushing, for fighting fire,” he said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol wants experts from his own country to help monitor Japan’s release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site. Yoon requested participation in a discussion with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Lithuania on Wednesday, according to a statement from South Korea’s presidential office.
Treaty obligations outlined by Standingontheroad included the medicine chest clause or "universal health care, assured to First Nations free of cost" as well as rights around education, fishing, hunting, minerals and clean drinking water. "We are all treaty people," Standingontheroad said. "We all agreed to share this land and respect treaty between our peoples."
As Alberta continues to fight wildfires and deal with extreme heat warnings, climate experts are wondering what the next few months will look like for the province in terms of adequate water supply. "We went into the winter with not very much precipitation, came out of the winter with some really dry conditions and now we're really dry still," said Sara Hoffman, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. "Even near normal precipitation won't be enough to alleviate the situation we find ourselves in," she added.
The bill Nestlé is backing this year, SB 1660, would create a whole new category of water, along with allowing industrial plants to bypass licensed water providers and treat water on-site for underground storage. "Effluent" -- or used -- water was already classified by Arizona as treated sewer water. However, this bill would create another type of effluent water specifically for manufacturers.
Mindorff discussed the benefits of agrivoltaics, which he described as a hybrid agricultural system that maximizes land use and reduces water consumption while providing clean and affordable energy. Among the benefits is the potential to increase crop yields, while reducing water and fertilizer requirements as well as provide growers with additional income generated through selling solar electricity.
Nearly a year ago, flood waters inundated swaths of south-western British Columbia. Mudslides destroyed sections of highways and swollen, turbid rivers washed away houses and bridges. Now, the region has the opposite problem: months of drought have begun to take a toll on what was once dubbed Canada’s “wet coast”. And as unpredictable weather events become a hallmark of a changing climate, experts warn that the two events are linked – and that a culture of overconsumption and poor resource management threaten to further amplify the effects of the current crisis.
A water shortage in Nunavut has prompted the region's territorial government to declare a state of emergency, leading experts to re-evaluate water infrastructure in areas they say lack necessary funding. "Families are frustrated. Businesses are frustrated," MP Lori Idlout told CTV News Channel. "Water is such an essential human right." Iqaluit, which reported a water shortage last week, is now working on getting regulatory approval to pump in water from a nearby lake.
Beyond ruining a perfectly good soccer pitch, the kilogram of daily droppings a single adult Canada goose can produce can also contaminate water and cause algae blooms that steal oxygen and block sunlight for underwater plants. Local birder Geoffrey Newell said they can also be aggressive birds and sometimes steal food from ducks and other goose species. He noted this doesn’t apply to Canada geese fully native to B.C., which migrate to the Arctic in winter.
While Canada geese are a national symbol, the animals can cause a lot of problems for the cities they reside in, leaving officials grappling to find solutions to mitigate their populations. In recent decades, B.C.-based urban biodiversity planner Jennifer Rae Pierce says Canada geese have been derided as urban pests, overrunning new habitats across North America, especially in cities.
Unprecedented flooding over the past decade that has devastated hundreds of millions of people across the globe and caused billion of dollars in damage—including last year’s massive floods in British Columbia and the 2013 flood that hit Calgary—underlines the pressing need for this research. Dr. Martyn Clark (PhD), professor in the Department of Geography and Planning in the College of Arts and Science, is the team lead for USask. He will be joined by departmental colleague and Distinguished Professor Dr. John Pomeroy (PhD), along with Prof. Dr. Alain Pietroniro (PhD) of UCalgary’s Schulich School of Engineering.
Wastewater data has proven to be useful in the management of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan. So, yes, scientists have been looking at your poop. But how does the process work? Universities, cities, and utilities providers have teamed up to share data with the public and Saskatchewan Health Authority. In Regina, two biologists head up the team that looks at these samples: Tzu-Chiao Chao, a molecular biologist and Nicole Hansmeier, a microbiologist. Both are professors at the University of Regina.
The cold snap and high amounts of snowfall currently blanketing B.C. may have long-term benefits for the province, according to experts. Environment Canada has issued extreme weather warnings for most of B.C. on Thursday, with up to 30 centimetres of snow expected in Metro Vancouver and 25 centimetres on Vancouver Island.
After a year that saw both Regina and Calgary voting to add fluoride to their drinking water, some British Columbians are wondering whether it's time for cities in the province to finally consider fluoridation. About two-thirds of Calgarians who voted in Monday's plebiscite supported the fluoride measure — hopeful news for Dr. Mario Brondani, an associate professor of dentistry at the University of British Columbia and a self-described "passionate advocate for fluoride."
