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 Great Lakes cover nearly 95,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) and hold over 20% of Earth's surface fresh water. More than 30 million people in the U.S. and Canada rely on them for drinking water. The lakes support a multibillion-dollar maritime economy, and the lands around them provided many of the raw materials—timber, coal, iron—that fueled the Midwest's emergence as an industrial heartland.
To conserve fish and their habitat and human health from harmful substances from pulp and paper mills, the government of Canada has introduced Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations that were created under the Fisheries Act in 1971 in Canada to control deposits of harmful substances in water frequented by fish. Today, in this article, we will learn about these regulations. To improve water quality, conserve fish, fish habitat, and fisheries resources’ usage, the government of Canada has designed Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations (PPER). Elements of Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations: The regulations put a limit on the suspended solids and maximum quantities of biochemical oxygen that can be deposited by pulp and paper mills into water frequented by fish under prescribed conditions. The regulations prohibit any effluent deposits which can be acutely deadly to fish. To identify effluents impacts on fish and fish habitats, these regulations include requirements for mills to host environmental effects monitoring.
