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 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting a moderate bloom with a severity level of 2-6 on a scale of 1-10 for western Lake Erie this summer. The U.S. federal agency issued a bulletin last week after collecting data of phosphorus discharge into the Maumee River which dumps into the lake. "The range in forecasted severity reflects the uncertainty in forecasting precipitation for late June and July," the NOAA bulletin stated.
Using high-resolution satellite images and computer modelling, researchers from the University of Waterloo have documented the importance small wetlands play in water purification and conservation. “What our work showed is that they are actually really important,” said Nandita Basu, a professor at the University of Waterloo and Canada Research Chair in Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology.
To continue improving water quality in the Red River basin, including downstream in Lake Winnipeg, the governments of Canada and the United States approved four additional water quality objectives to be monitored by the International Red River Watershed Board (IRRWB) following a recommendation by the International Joint Commission (IJC). These additional, non-regulatory water quality objectives are for the key nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen.
“We normally have algae blooms during the summertime. But what’s unusual about this one is how large it is and the fact that there are fish kills,” White said. Most algae blooms end after a week or so. But a triple-digit heat wave forecast for the holiday weekend may help the Bay Area's grow even more, White said. She said that reports of dead fish started coming in last week.
The wetland project next to the Okanagan Falls wastewater treatment plant to polish treated effluent is now fully operational. The new wetland is operated by the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen and comprises 1.9 hectares of floodplain land adjacent to the Okanagan River. According to the RDOS, while wastewater treatment plant discharges clean effluent, during the summer months, the wetland allows for an additional one-third reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus loading to the Okanagan River.
A report from one of the country’s largest and longest-standing conservation organizations shares the positive results it’s having on biodiversity and climate change thanks to support from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program. During the past two years of the program, Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) has delivered 106 habitat projects in areas of the country with the greatest conservation need.
A new University of Saskatchewan smartphone app will help farmers and communities identify hotspots of nutrient contamination in freshwaters and possibly predict where algae blooms — slimy, plant-like green organisms that hinder water quality — are likely to grow. “Tracking how and where agricultural nutrients, which help crops grow, may be washed away with rainfalls and snowmelt is a major concern for both researchers and the public, and that’s where our app comes in,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada scientist Diogo Costa.
The changes caused by declining ice cover on the Great Lakes are pretty bad, but it's not all doom and gloom. Ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined in the past 40 years with average ice coverage dropping up to 75 per cent, depending on the lake. "We rely a lot on the Great Lakes for shipping ... so an ice-free Great Lake is not a barrier to shipping. But beyond that there are a lot of negatives associated," said Mike McKay, the executive director for the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), based at the University of Windsor.
