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.
A family of five in Howie Centre, N.S., has gone for months without clean water in their Cape Breton home after their well was contaminated by heating oil. They say officials from Nova Scotia's Environment Department confirmed a spill occurred on a neighbour's property earlier this year, but so far, little is being done about it and there are fears the oil has now spread to the nearby Sydney River.
Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. is challenging charges laid by Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore energy regulator in relation to a 2019 spill that sent 12,000 litres of oil into the Atlantic Ocean. Lawyers representing the energy giant entered not guilty pleas when the case was called in St. John's provincial court on Thursday.
Emergency crews on Friday were preparing to labor through the weekend to clean up the largest U.S. crude oil spill in nearly a decade, with workers descending on this farming community from as far away as Mississippi. A heavy odor of oil hung in the air, according to a Reuters witness, as tractor trailers ferried generators, lighting and ground mats to a muddy site. Federal investigators were at the scene trying to help determine what caused a leak of some 14,000 barrels of oil from Western Canada, an official said.
Crews are assessing the waters off San Juan Island in the Salish Sea near Vancouver Island after a fishing boat sank and leaked fuel on Saturday. The Aleutian Isle had nearly 9,840 litres of oil and diesel on board when it went down off the west coast of San Juan Island in Washington state. Gerald Graham, a Victoria-based consultant who specializes in marine oil spill response and prevention, said the diesel fuel flowing from the boat is very light, which means crews can't use booms or skimmers to clean it up.
One of the municipalities most affected by an oil spill from Algoma Steel on the St. Mary's River does not yet know when it will be able to reopen its water treatment plant. Lynn Watson, mayor of the Township of Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional, which includes the village of Echo Bay, said they shut down the water treatment plant's intake last Thursday, as soon as Algoma Steel alerted them of the oil spill.
But the future is going to require all kinds of energy – solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, bioenergy (and yes, fossil fuels too). Even the formerly oil-centric IEA has shifted; last May, it issued a landmark road map to net zero by 2050. Canada has long been wealthy in energy, and will continue to be. Fossil fuels were the cornerstone, which is why they became synonymous with “energy.” But it’s time to redefine the term. Canada has vast resources beyond oil and gas. When we say energy, we need to also see solar, water, wind and, yes, uranium. They’re right there. We just have to tap them.
One of the bigger infrastructure projects scheduled for 2021 in Pincher Creek is replacing the storm drainage system along Church Avenue, Willow Street and Poplar Avenue. As part of the 2021 capital budget, $377,042.20 will be used to begin replacing the old storm sewer. Pincher Creek’s drainage system is also getting a legal boost after council approved all three readings for a new storm drainage bylaw, Bylaw 1630-21. Among other things, the bylaw lays out what can and cannot be released into storm drains.
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.”
