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.
Some residents of B.C.'s West Kootenay region say they're worried about water levels in the Arrow Lakes amid a historic drought and high temperatures that triggered an early snowpack melt. They're calling on B.C. Hydro, which uses the Arrow Lakes as a reservoir to generate power, to do more to preserve valuable salmon habitats and recreation spots.
Weeks of historic rainfall in California won't be enough to end a severe drought but it will provide 27 million people with five times more water than suppliers had been told to expect a month ago, state officials announced Thursday. The Department of Water Resources said public water agencies will now get 30% of what they had asked for, up from the 5% officials had previously announced in December. That’s because for the first three weeks of January nine atmospheric rivers dumped an estimated 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow on California. It was enough water to increase storage in the state’s two largest reservoirs by a combined 66%.
Officials on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast have approved another extension of the state of local emergency declared last month as an intense summer drought and little rain have nearly exhausted a key watershed. The Sunshine Coast Regional District says the state of local emergency, declared jointly with the District of Sechelt and shíshálh Nation, will now remain in effect until at least Nov. 21.
A grain farmer near Fort St. John says he and other growers are struggling as drought conditions continue to impact northeastern B.C., resulting in some of their poorest yields in years. "There was very little crop because everything got dried out," Malcolm Odermatt, a farmer and president of the B.C. Grain Producers Association, told CBC's Betsy Trumpener. "The plants went into survival mode … we're not going to do a big yield. We're just going to get a few seeds. We had absolutely no rain."
Thousands of dead fish, a prolonged wildfire season and intense water shortages leading to ice rink closures are all symptoms of record-setting drought in parts of British Columbia. The Lower Mainland, Sunshine Coast and West Vancouver Island areas are experiencing Level 5 drought conditions — the most severe in the province's classification scale, which the B.C. government's drought information web page says means adverse impacts are "almost certain.''
Our closest neighbour to the south has a serious problem — and I’m not talking about racial animus, gun violence or political polarization. No, I’m referring to water shortages that the United States has never experienced before. To put it bluntly, the U.S. is literally running out of accessible water. And without water, the lives of millions of Americans are in immediate danger. I mean, you can’t live without safe water to drink.
Winnipeg set a new record for the driest July since records began nearly 150 years ago in 1873. Rob Paola, a retired Environment Canada meteorologist who still follows weather and weather history in southern Manitoba, says the Winnipeg airport recorded 8.5 millimetres of rain this past July, when the 30-year average is 75.8 millimetres. That comes after a prolonged 21-month dry spell that has depleted groundwater sources and sucked the moisture out of the soil.
