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.
An environmental group says a coal company's application to deepen its open-pit mine shouldn't be considered while it's under investigation over wastewater releases into local rivers. The Alberta Wilderness Association says CST Canada Coal in Grande Cache, Alta., must prove it can operate safely before the provincial regulator looks at its request.
In early February, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta started fielding calls from community members after the provincial regulator revealed toxic wastewater had been leaking for months from a tailings pond at Imperial Oil's Kearl oil sands mine. Many in the community hunt and fish downstream of Canada's huge bitumen mines, and wanted to know if the game meat in their freezers was safe to eat.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says Alberta's nine-month silence over two releases of toxic oilsands tailings water is worrisome. He says Alberta is supposed to notify the federal government over such releases within 24 hours. In this case, Alberta government agencies seem to have known about seepage from Imperial Oil's Kearl oilsand tailings pond for nine months before making a public statement on it.
Manitoba Hydro is asking the provincial regulator, the Public Utilities Board, to approve electricity rate increases of 3.5 per cent in each of the next two years. It also warns that it will likely need rate hikes above the rate of inflation in the future if it is to meet government debt-reduction targets. "These proposed increases will help ensure Manitoba Hydro has the financial resources available to handle the risks created by our $24-billion debt load and factors that are out of our control like fluctuating interest rates, export market prices and water levels," Jay Grewal, president and CEO of the Crown-owned utility, said in a press release Wednesday.
Nova Scotia Power burned through another $2.2 million from ratepayers late last year at its ill-fated refurbishment of the Tusket hydro dam near Yarmouth, N.S. The disclosure of contingency spending during the last three months of 2021 was ordered by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board after the company told the regulator on Jan. 31 it was halting work yet again due to water seepage. The company filed its contingency spending to meet a Feb. 23 deadline imposed by the regulator.
