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.
Half the population of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 30 kilometres southeast of Montreal, have been without drinking water since a major water main break at the beginning of the week. The city declared a local state of emergency on Wednesday. The water cutoff affected more than 26,000 residential, commercial and industrial addresses in the St-Luc and L’Acadie sectors as of Wednesday afternoon, as well as part of the St-Jean sector, all on the western side of the Richelieu River.
A town west of Calgary says it continues to truck in water from other communities to maintain its required levels. The Town of Cochrane has declared a local state of emergency after an accident Saturday affected its water and wastewater pipelines, causing sewage to flow into the Bow River. Officials in both Cochrane and Calgary, which draw water from the river, say the drinking water remains safe.
The Town of Cochrane has declared a local state of emergency as it copes with the aftermath of a major pipeline break over the weekend that has left its water reservoirs at critical levels. During a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Jeff Genung said he signed off on the declaration because it gives the town legal authority to take "extraordinary actions" to deal with what he called the crisis at hand.
Flooding in B.C.'s Interior has destroyed one home and forced several others to be evacuated, according to the local fire chief. Evacuation orders are now in place for five properties — including the local firehall — in the Village of Cache Creek, B.C., where a local state of emergency was declared on May 1 as the nearby creek and river threatened homes in the area and posed an "imminent threat to people and property."
Prince Rupert declared a local state of emergency Saturday, as city officials said in a new release that there were three breaks in local water mains and multiple service interruptions that started early that morning. Herb Pond, the city's mayor, says six of the city's major water pipes have burst in the past week. "We have a very old water system," he said in an interview. "Much of the pipes are well over 100 years old." Pond says the ground in the area is mostly rock and muskeg with very little soil,causing the pipes to shift and be more susceptible to damage, especially as they get older.
Rain in the forecast could increase the water level on Lake of the Woods again in the next few days, just as flood conditions were beginning to improve. As of Friday, the lake was 324.1 metres (1,063.3 feet) above sea level, just a few centimetres below its record crest of 324.31 metres (1,064 feet) above sea level reached during the flood of 1950, according to the Lake of the Woods Control Board. However, rainfall is expected to rise between five and 11 centimetres (two to four inches) over the next week, with most of the rise occurring over the weekend, says the board's most recent notice.
Just off the TransCanada Highway in Abbotsford, B.C., dozens of businesses and hundreds of homes were destroyed in the devastating flooding from late last year and have not yet received any financial assistance. At the peak of the emergency, nearly 15,000 people fled their homes as floodwaters shut down major highways and destroyed vast farmland. “You know everybody’s got similar stories, traumatic stories,” Arthur Deleeuw, a victim of the floods, told CTV National News.
Residents of Hitac̓u, the heart of the Ucluelet First Nation, have been told not to drink, bathe in, or even clean with the water coming out of their taps. Water in the community goes on a return journey to become drinkable — it travels from Hitac̓u across the Ucluelet Inlet to the District of Ucluelet, where it is processed and then flows back to Hitac̓u as potable water. But the submerged water line it travels in is was hit and damaged by a barge on Monday.
