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.
To give residents easy access to drinking water this summer, the City of Ottawa has installed a water fountain in the city's Chinatown neighbourhood that attaches to a fire hydrant much like a fire hose. Ottawa's water services department noticed during last summer's heat waves in western Canada people loved having drinking fountains and misting stations run off the cities' fire hydrants — so in the fall, they decided to recreate the idea here.
Islanders looking toward a future of more frequent extreme weather events may not be able to find the protection they need through insurers just yet. A report released last month said that by 2050, the province will see significantly more severe weather conditions due to climate change. The report said there will be increased risk of coastal erosion, heat waves, heavy rain, flooding, severe ice storms and droughts.
A sweltering heat wave in much of Western Canada in the last week of June had cascading effects on sea life, experts say. Scott Hinch, director of the Pacific salmon ecology and conservation laboratory at the University of British Columbia, said juvenile salmon such as sockeye, coho and chinook in fresh water would have been most affected by recent heat waves. “They’re going to be living in fresh water for one to two years and it’s that life history stage, that this particular heat wave and just climate change in fresh water in particular, is going to have some of its greatest effects,” he said in an interview.
As devastating heat waves sweep swaths of the globe, farmers in Canada are facing a crippling phenomenon: Crops are baking in fields. Cherries have roasted on trees. Fields of canola and wheat have withered brown. And as feed and safe water for animals grow scarce, ranchers may have no choice but to sell off their livestock. “It will totally upend Canadian food production if this becomes a regular thing,” said Lenore Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia.
Some residents of the inner-city Calgary community of Sunnyside are hoping the city can find a way to turn off the tap on an underground spring that leaves water pooling on their street year-round. The water has been causing trouble on Sunnyhill Lane N.W. for the past couple of years. "About two years ago, this puddle showed up, and it doesn't go away," said Christie Page, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 10 years.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday asked people and businesses in the nation's most populous state to voluntarily cut how much water they use by 15 per cent as the Western United States weathers a drought that is rapidly emptying reservoirs relied on for agriculture, drinking water and fish habitat. Newsom's request is not an order, but it demonstrates the growing challenges of a drought that will only worsen throughout the summer and fall and is tied to recent heat waves. Temperatures in parts of the region are spiking this week but are less intense than the record heat wave that may have caused hundreds of deaths in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia a week ago.
