Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

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.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

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Extra $1.3M needed for Three Rivers water expansion

Extra $1.3M needed for Three Rivers water expansion

The cost to expand the water and sewer system in the eastern P.E.I. community of Three Rivers is coming in about 30 per cent more expensive than first budgeted. Quotes for the project came in higher than anticipated, said Dorothy Macdonald, interim CEO for the town's services. Despite the unexpected expense, she said the town is ready to get started. "The project is a priority for the town's rivers and currently we have in-hand the ability to work toward 70 per cent of the project," she said. "We're also going to work very hard in the next little while to get that extra 30 per cent, so that we are finishing this project to 100 per cent capacity by the end of next summer."The town originally projected a $4.7 million cost for the project, which will extend the current water and sewage system about 2.5 kilometres from the old border of Montague, into the old community of Brudenell and up to MacDonald Road. It is now looking at closer to $6 million. The 80 new customers who will be using the new expansion will cover most of the extra cost. It was important to her to ensure current customers using the utility did not completely cover the cost of the program, Macdonald said.

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School are taking a stand to raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water for Indigenous communities. After learning about Anishinaabe Indigenous rights advocate Autumn Peltier and her mission to secure safe drinking water on all Canadian reserves, the school’s Grade 2/3 class was inspired to take action. The class wanted to contribute to the efforts of educating others about the struggles families on reserves face with unsafe drinking water and the importance of clean water for all.

Fleming College receives federal funding for multidisciplinary water monitoring and detection research

Fleming College receives federal funding for multidisciplinary water monitoring and detection research

Fleming College has been awarded a two-year, $641,800 Applied Research and Technology Partnership (ARTP) grant from the federal College and Community Innovation program. The funding was announced Tuesday (April 5), by Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and will see Fleming’s Centre for Advancement of Water and Wastewater Technologies (CAWT) located at Lindsay’s Frost Campus, work collaborative with Fleming’s Centre for Advancement in Mechatronics and Industrial Internet of Things (CAMIIT) and the Centre for Innovative Aquaculture Production (CIAP) on industry-led applied research projects to develop technologies focused on the detection, monitoring, or surveillance of contaminants, as well as other water quality parameters.

Alberta promises close watch on new mines but cuts oversight of coal-polluted rivers

Alberta promises close watch on new mines but cuts oversight of coal-polluted rivers

Alberta government documents show repeated cuts to environmental monitoring despite contaminants in some waterways that exceed thresholds that are supposed to trigger increased scrutiny. The province's 2019 five-year monitoring plan shows stations on two rivers and a creek polluted with selenium from coal mines were mothballed. That was despite more than two decades of readings that Alberta Environment guidelines suggest should have led to closer attention.

Clean water shortage, COVID-19 outbreak puts northern Sask. Dene community in crisis

Clean water shortage, COVID-19 outbreak puts northern Sask. Dene community in crisis

"Our members don't have adequate access to clean water for basic hygiene and safety purposes, which is essential to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in our community," McDonald said. "At this point, we are experiencing an incredible strain on our essential staff, from our delivery drivers to our health-care staff who may have been in direct contact with the positive cases." She said 37 positive cases have been identified and 207 people were considered direct contacts with these people as of Monday. There are about 1,000 people living on reserve, meaning at least one-quarter of the membership are directly affected by the illness or by self-monitoring, according to the news release.

COVID-19 may delay Liberal pledge to end long-term boil water advisories on First Nations

COVID-19 may delay Liberal pledge to end long-term boil water advisories on First Nations

The pandemic has put some of the Liberal government's key deadlines of its reconciliation agenda in jeopardy, including a promise to end all long-term boil-water advisories on First Nations by next March. Last week's throne speech indicated a shift in language around the commitment to eliminate the long-term advisories. It made no reference to the 2021 deadline — which was clearly cited in the previous throne speech in 2019.

Baffled over the purpose of new water and watershed bylaw

Baffled over the purpose of new water and watershed bylaw

On Oct. 20, 2018 the citizens of the Cowichan Valley voted for establishing the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Service Establishment Bylaw (#4202). We thought that this bylaw would be used to protect our water supplies. It has been known for many years that the wells at three commercial establishments on Fisher Road, Cobble Hill had nitrate levels greatly exceeding the Health Canada Drinking Water Guidelines. These wells and surrounding CVRD monitoring wells have been monitored by a number of agencies, including the CVRD, in the past. The Cobble Hill Aquifer Interagency Task Group (CHAITG) was established to deal with this nitrate contamination and this Task Group commissioned Western Water Associates Ltd. (WWAL) to carry out a review of past studies. Surprisingly, this review did not review aquifer nitrite levels, only nitrate levels. Nitrite is a bigger concern than nitrate since nitrite can convert the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin to methemoglobin which does not carry oxygen. Thus, nitrite can cause tissue oxygen deficiency which is particularly problematical for infants and children since it can stunt their mental and physical growth.

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