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 15th round of negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty was held in Vancouver on January 25 and 26. The Columbia River Treaty is a water management agreement that was implemented in 1964 between the United States and Canada. The U.S. prepaid Canada $64 million for a 60-year agreement to ensure flood control operations would be provided. The Columbia Treaty doesn’t have an end date but can be terminated by either country as of September 2024 or onward, if 10 years' notice is given.
Canada is famously home to 20 percent of the world’s freshwater — but how well are we stewarding this supply? WWF-Canada recently reassessed the health of our country’s 25 watersheds to better understand how they’re responding to threats from pollution, habitat loss and climate change. Our 2020 Watershed Reports found that 26 per cent of Canadas’s 167 sub-watersheds received a score of Good or Very Good, which is good or very good news! But what’s bad, or possibly very bad, is that nearly 60 per cent of these sub-watersheds received no score at all because they remain Data Deficient. In other words, we just don’t know. This lack of data is concerning as we need a complete picture to determine which areas need dedicated efforts to protect our freshwater ecosystems.
Batchewana First Nation members have received some welcome news. It was announced this past week that a ground-breaking ceremony was staged for a water treatment plant expected to be fully functional on the First Nation in northern Ontario by the end of 2021. “They’re happy,” Chief Dean Sayers said of the Batchewana First Nation members who will have access to clean drinking water in their homes.
