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.
Lynn Kriwoken dips a black rod into the deep waters of Alta Lake next to Whistler, B.C., about 157 kilometres north of Vancouver, and a bunch of different numbers start rapidly moving on her monitor. Depth, oxygen levels, turbidity and much more appear on the screen — metrics that measure the relative health of the water in the moment, and when done regularly enough, reflects the health of the lake over time.
The researchers found that from 1980 to 2017, oxygen levels fell by about five per cent near the surface and 19 per cent in deep waters, they reported in the journal Nature last week. The decline in oxygen levels in lakes is 2.75 to 9.3 times higher than the decline in oxygen in the world's oceans, which has also raised concern among scientists about the health of aquatic life. The fact that water can't hold as much oxygen at warmer temperatures is a main factor in decreasing oxygen levels in both lakes and oceans. When the surface waters warm, they also mix less with deeper waters, disrupting the downward flow of oxygen.
