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.
Engineers must design with the risk of flooding in mind. But my research shows that if we also design with the concept of rain as a precious resource and plan to soak it up, floods will do less damage. These design ideas bring many co-benefits including cooling spaces in hot summers, cleaner air and healthier bodies, resilient food and flower gardens and access to more green space, which is accepted as beneficial for our mental health.
Sometimes there’s too much water; sometimes not enough. A major challenge with global heating is that it doesn’t necessarily cause more or less of something in a specific geographic area (hotter, colder; wetter, dryer); it just makes everything less predictable and often more extreme. Consider some late-summer headlines. Pakistan “faces ‘monsoon on steroids’ as more flood warnings issued”. In Spain, “Historic monuments resurface as severe drought shrinks reservoirs.” Melting Greenland ice is “set to raise sea levels by nearly a foot”. In Jackson, Also, in the U.S., “As Colorado River dries, the U.S. teeters on the brink of larger water crisis”.Mississippi, the “water system is failing, city will be with no or little drinking water indefinitely”.
