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.
Residents of New Glasgow, N.S., can now apply for free home assessments and upgrades to protect against overland flooding, through a new project by Clean Foundation. The Dartmouth-based environmental charity is partnering with Nova Scotia's Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Town of New Glasgow and the Halifax Regional Municipality to kick start the resilient home retrofit pilot project. In May, the province spent $400,000 on this initiative.
All climate disasters are not created equal and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction recommends retreat in the face of only one type of threat. "In our opinion, retreat is not an option that is important for most climate hazards in Canada. The hazard where retreat is really important and quite viable and a critical option involves flooding," executive director Paul Kovacs said.
Rising water levels in the St. Lawrence Seaway could cost the economy more than $1 billion, shippers and port operators say. A new study from the Chamber of Marine Commerce warns that opening the floodgates further at a dam in Cornwall, Ont., would wash away between $1 billion and $1.75 billion in revenue for businesses on both sides of the border. A board of control recently increased the flow at the Moses Saunders Dam — the only control point on the St. Lawrence Seaway, which includes the Great Lakes — to allow 10,400 cubic metres of water per second out of Lake Ontario.
