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.
The threat of invasive mussels has led the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) to propose a potential temporary ban on all out-of-province boats entering B.C.'s waterways. James Littley, deputy administrator for the OBWB, said two species of freshwater mussels — zebra and quagga mussels — could be catastrophic to lake and river systems if stringent measures aren't put in place to keep them out of the province.
Archeologists, historians and divers are trying to digitally capture more than 1,000 shipwrecks at the bottom of the Great Lakes before they become unrecognizable after a combination of invasive mussels and climate change have accelerated their deterioration at an alarming rate. The Great Lakes region is known among diving circles as one of the best places in the world to explore shipwrecks because the cold, fresh water offers ideal conditions for their preservation, even in shallow water.
