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 First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer.
Perpetua Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: PPTA) (TSX: PPTA) ("Perpetua Resources" or "the "Company") announced today that the Company and the Nez Perce Tribe ("Parties") have an agreement in principle which outlines the provisions for a settlement of the Nez Perce Tribe's Clean Water Act lawsuit. The Parties have made significant progress through mediation and are working toward a final Clean Water Act settlement agreement in the third quarter of 2023 based on the agreed framework. In a status report filed with the Federal Court on June 16, 2023, both Parties are requesting a further extension of the stay to September 29, 2023. The Nez Perce Tribe filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit in 2019 and both Parties entered a Court-ordered dispute resolution process with a mediator in February 2021.
The couple is telling their story publicly for the first time — to warn others of the potential risk in buying shoreline property in Great Lakes communities, where the forces of erosion, fluctuating water levels and battering storms have been accelerated by climate change. Bousfield and Stumpf said once they discovered the house was at risk, they looked at options to remediate the collapsing bluff in order to save the house from being swallowed by the sparkling blue waters of Lake Huron. But what they found was a dizzying array of choices that ranged from $370,000 to well over $1 million. The solutions included everything from building a retaining wall, to dumping enough dirt over the bluff to hold it up, even spraying the entire bluff with a substance called shotcrete (basically, sprayed concrete), which is typically used keep the sheer face of open pit mines from collapsing.
Skipped showers and rainwater-powered toilets are among the methods an Arizona town has adopted as it battles to cope without water. Rio Verde Foothills, a suburb of Scottsdale, was cut off from the city's water supply on 1 January. The controversial move left hundreds without access to running water, prompting residents to file a lawsuit demanding that services be restored. Scottsdale argues that it bears no responsibility for Rio Verde.
Lawyers for the British Columbia government have agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit by a couple whose property flooded after a third of the forest in the surrounding watershed was cut down. The agreement came in a handwritten note that was signed by the Crown's lawyers and handed over in court on the day the trial was set to begin last month. Ray Chipeniuk and Sonia Sawchuk had launched the lawsuit in 2014, claiming that B.C. Timber Sales, the provincial Crown agency responsible for auctioning about 20 per cent of B.C.'s annual allowable cut, was negligent in its failure to take reasonable care to ensure their property in northwestern B.C. would not be damaged by the logging.
Rama First Nation lawyer Stephanie Willsey has made a big splash on behalf of her fellow Indigenous people. Willsey recently won an $8-billion class-action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of reserves who have not had access to clean drinking water. Willsey’s legal journey to ensure there is clean drinking water on Canada's reserves started when she joined Mccarthy Tétrault in 2016. The Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute (ODCVI) graduate began working for the Toronto-based firm straight out of law school.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer abandoned a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at shutting down an oil pipeline that runs through part of the Great Lakes but said the state would continue pursuing a separate case with the same goal. Whitmer's legal maneuver followed a federal judge's decision earlier this month to retain jurisdiction over a suit brought by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. after the state revoked an easement allowing Line 5 to cross the Straits of Mackinac.
After 14 years of battling Alberta regulators and the fracking industry over a water well contaminated with methane and chemicals, Jessica Ernst says she feels incalculable grief and anger. On April 1, 2021, her tortuous legal crusade — which included a controversial detour to the Supreme Court of Canada — came to an end with no resolution. What one Alberta lawyer dubbed “the legal saga of the decade” is over. Court of Queen’s Bench Judge J.T. Eamon accepted applications from Encana and the Alberta government to dismiss the case due to inactivity on the file for three years. “It was inevitable,” says Ernst who was informed three weeks after the dismissal. “The rules are the rules.”
About 100 million litres of fresh water flows west to the city of Winnipeg every day but the struggling Indigenous people who live on the shores of Shoal Lake say no benefits have ever flowed east to them. Compensation is decades overdue, they say, and they're now hoping favourable developments in their $500-million lawsuit against the city and the province of Ontario will tilt the odds their way.
Tataskweyak Cree Nation (TCN) in Northern Manitoba, which has been under a boil-water advisory since 2017, is one of the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the federal government that seeks to have access to drinkable water recognized as a right and spur the federal government to do more for it and other First Nations under long-term water advisories.
Curve Lake First Nation took a bold step when it launched a $2.1 billion lawsuit against the federal government over failed promises to supply the community with clean drinking water. Last week’s report by the Auditor General of Canada highlighted, once again, just how badly Ottawa has failed hundreds of First Nations communities across the country over decades, and continues to fail many of them.
Tataskweyak Cree Nation (TCN) is one of more than 55 First Nation communities in Canada under a long-term boil water advisory and has been for the last four years. On Thursday, the First Nation’s Chief and NDP MP Niki Ashton called on Ottawa to restore clean drinking water. TCN has said the Canadian government has failed to deliver on the promise of clean drinking water for their community. “We can no longer ignore it anymore. We have to fight for our people," said TCN Chief Doreen Spence. "We matter like all other Canadians." Spence said they are left with no choice but to bring the issue – a basic human right – to the United Nations.
A legal challenge filed in Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench could cost the federal government billions, if it is proven the government has violated the Charter rights of a large class of First Nations people for decades by failing to provide them with safe drinking water. A proposed class-action lawsuit was filed on Nov. 20 by Tataskweyak Cree Nation Chief Doreen Spence on her own behalf and on behalf of her northern Manitoba First Nation. The suit alleges the First Nation has spent decades without access to clean drinking water and seeks damages.
