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.
Over the last five months, Isabelle Couture has become accustomed to boiling pots of water on her stove, buying 18-litre jugs, and brushing her teeth with a water bottle. "I haven't felt very safe to drink it, because I don't know exactly what's going on," she said. She doesn't know what harmful substances have been detected — or when it will be safe to consume water again directly from the tap.
To conserve fish and their habitat and human health from harmful substances from pulp and paper mills, the government of Canada has introduced Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations that were created under the Fisheries Act in 1971 in Canada to control deposits of harmful substances in water frequented by fish. Today, in this article, we will learn about these regulations. To improve water quality, conserve fish, fish habitat, and fisheries resources’ usage, the government of Canada has designed Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations (PPER). Elements of Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations: The regulations put a limit on the suspended solids and maximum quantities of biochemical oxygen that can be deposited by pulp and paper mills into water frequented by fish under prescribed conditions. The regulations prohibit any effluent deposits which can be acutely deadly to fish. To identify effluents impacts on fish and fish habitats, these regulations include requirements for mills to host environmental effects monitoring.
Following public uproar of the Alberta government quietly pulling the 1976 coal policy, opening up more areas of the province for coal mining, a Calgary committee has started work to find out how those changes could affect the city on the Bow and Elbow Rivers. “The good news is, we found out today that although there’s different (land use) categories, the main category of the national parks and everything for our river system in the Bow is not affected with this policy,” Ward 1 Coun. Ward Sutherland said. “Obviously we’re very pleased with that.”
