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 city of Montreal is looking to significantly reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions while vastly improving the St. Lawrence River's water quality by overhauling its wastewater treatment plant. As part of Montreal's 2023 budget (presented in November) the city earmarked $682 million over 10 years to replace the incinerators at the Jean-R.-Marcotte plant in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles.
New technology developed by engineers at the University of Alberta shows potential in cleaning and decontaminating process water from oilsands production. The process relies on ozonation and biofilters to remove organic compounds from contaminated water. The study, published in Science of the Total Environment, demonstrates that the method, previously used to clean pharmaceutical waste water, efficiently removes naphthenic acids, considered to be one of the main contaminants in oilsands process water.
