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.
You may wonder why your water is suddenly tasting mouldy. This unpleasant taste may follow you into the shower, your workplace, gym or college campus. You may have also been losing sleep over thoughts of contaminated water affecting your health. But the reality is nowhere near as dangerous as it seems. City officials say the cause of your worry is geosmin, a “harmless” naturally occurring carbon compound that usually makes its way into Calgary’s reservoirs in late summer or fall.
Experts say the extent to which wildfires have burned across the province this year will have serious implications for the quality of B.C.’s watersheds and the ecosystems that rely on them. John Richardson, a Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences professor at the University of British Columbia, says with so many hillsides scorched by wildfires this year, there’s nothing to prevent incoming rain from creating a “debris torrent” — something which spells bad news for the province’s drinking water.
The City of Calgary says it has moved its drought monitoring dial to dry from normal. It says the decision is based on tracking of precipitation levels, reservoirs and lake levels, stream flow rates in the rivers and water demand. "Despite the moments of intense rainfall through July, our monitoring team continues to see impacts of this year's dry conditions across Calgary and the region," Sarah Marshall, the city's water resources planner, said in a statement.
"It concerns us. The water, the land, the medicine on it will be destroyed. The caribou that are roaming in that area and all the mushrooms and wild rice there. All of it would be contaminated," said Elder Eileen Linklater, one of the eight grandmothers who organized the protest. "Mines usually have spills. Yes, they build reservoirs, but they overflow and it would go into water streams. Also, they will release a lot of gasses into the air." Asked to comment on the concerns being expressed by the protesters, Foran said some of the information the concerns are based on is "misleading and untrue."
Outdoor watering restrictions have been put in place for Mabel Lake Water customers. The Regional District of North Okanagan says it is concerned about water system capacity for the Thursday to Monday period as tourists and locals flock to vacation properties on the North Okanagan lake. The RDNO says it's putting the watering restriction in place to ensure water availability for essential use. “Historical water usage on the July long weekend is high, and the water system has had issues in the past keeping up to demand,” the RDNO says. “Customers must take action to reduce the risk that the reservoirs become depleted, resulting in loss of water to customers, and/or compromised water quality.”
The beginning of June in Calgary has been hot and dry, and that could have an affect on the city’s water supply through summer. Environment Canada and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) says Calgary has come into the summer season with dryer than normal conditions — spring 2023 ended as the fifth driest spring on record.
More than half of the world’s largest lakes and reservoirs have lost significant amounts of water over the last three decades, according to a new study, which pins the blame largely on climate change and excessive water use. Roughly one-quarter of the world’s population lives in the basin of a drying lake, according to the study by a team of international scientists, published Thursday in the journal Science.
California will provide 100% of the water requested by cities and farms for the first time in years thanks to winter storms that filled reservoirs and runoff from a record snowpack, regulators announced Thursday. The State Water Project will provide full allocations to 29 water agencies supplying about 27 million customers and 750,000 acres of farmland, the Department of Water Resources said. As late as March, the agency was only expecting to provide 75% of requested water supplies.
Water levels fell so low in key reservoirs during the depth of California's drought that boat docks sat on dry, cracked land and cars drove into the centre of what should have been Folsom Lake. Those scenes are no more after a series of powerful storms dumped record amounts of rain and snow across California, replenishing reservoirs and bringing an end — mostly — to the state's three-year drought.
Nearly six metres below a South Delta residential area, workers are making upgrades to a water storage reservoir that holds millions of litres of drinking water. Work at the Pebble Hill reservoir began in the fall of 2021 to prepare for natural disasters in the future. Metro Vancouver has been steadily upgrading its reservoirs since the '90s to ensure it can provide water to the region following the "Big One" — a megathrust earthquake expected to hit the B.C. coast someday.
After a winter of epic storms in California, Yosemite National Park's famous waterfalls are in full flow, its reservoirs are brimming, and the snowpack in the surrounding Sierra Nevada Mountains is well above average. In drought-stricken California, that is cause for celebration, but wildlife experts warn that weather extremes driven by climate change can also change habitats too quickly for wildlife to adapt.
OPG and Northland Power Inc have proposed a first-of-a-kind project for Canada that would develop a pumped storage project at a long inactive, open-pit iron ore mine. The Marmora Pumped Storage Project is a joint-venture between the two power producers. Located in the Municipality of Marmora and Lake in Ontario, the proposed 400MW closed-loop pumped storage facility could power up to 400,000 homes at peak demand with clean, renewable electricity for up to five hours.
Thousands of farmers protested in Madrid on Wednesday over Spain's plan to reduce the amount of water taken from the Tagus river to irrigate agricultural land in the country's southeast. Spain experienced its hottest year on record in 2022. The heat, accompanied by a long drought throughout most of the year, caused reservoirs to fall to critical levels. Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said on Tuesday the curbs were necessary to prepare the country for the effects of climate change.
The snowpack covering California's mountains is off to one of its best starts in 40 years, officials announced Tuesday, raising hopes that the drought-stricken state could soon see relief in the spring when the snow melts and begins to refill parched reservoirs. Roughly a third of California's water each year comes from melted snow in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state. The state has built a complex system of canals and dams to capture that water and store it in huge reservoirs so it can be used the rest of the year when it doesn't rain or snow.
A UK-backed mission involving the University of Bristol, which will observe huge swathes of ocean and surface water in unprecedented detail, has launched into space. The international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite took off from Vandenberg in California on 16 December. SWOT will use a revolutionary radar instrument, named KaRIn, to survey at least 90% of the Earth’s surface, measuring and monitoring changes in the ocean, lakes, reservoirs, rivers and wetlands, to produce data that will help improve our understanding of climate change, as well as predict and mitigate flood risks around the world.
The Alberta government is partnering with the Municipal District of Acadia, the Special Areas board and the Canada Infrastructure Bank to continue planning a large-scale irrigation project for east-central Alberta. A total of $7 million is being invested in a two-year study that will explore the feasibility of the project, which proposes to increase water storage by pumping water from the Red Deer River into new reservoirs.
Federal water managers on Monday urged numerous California cities and industrial users to prepare for a fourth dry year, warning of possible "conservation actions" as drought conditions continue despite early rains. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said water storage is near historic lows in the reservoirs it operates in the state, which serve the Central Valley breadbasket as well as the cities of Sacramento and San Francisco.
Throughout the warmer months, Alberta's irrigation networks play a crucial role in the province. They transfer water from rivers and reservoirs, delivering it to rural communities, to farmers and to recreational areas, supporting some wildlife along the way. But along with the water comes the fish. And in the fall, when the irrigation networks shut down, thousands of them become stranded. "It's absolutely a recurring problem," said Lesley Peterson, a Calgary biologist with Trout Unlimited Canada.
B.C. Hydro says drought conditions in the province have left some of its reservoirs at or near record-low levels. While there is enough water at its larger facilities to meet the demand for power, the Crown utility says it has had to adapt to the impacts of climate change to keep fish alive downstream. Spokesperson Mora Scott says B.C. Hydro has held back water in its reservoirs in anticipation of a possible drought. "We have known that this can potentially be a problem for months, so we have been conserving water where we can so that we make sure that we're controlling that release of water, so that we don't see situations where we have rivers drying up and fish that are being killed," Scott said.
Essex residents may now use water outdoors. The announcement comes four days after residents were banned from using water outside due to "extreme weather events on the shores of Lake Erie" which caused "a significant reduction in water level." In a press release, the Town of Essex stated that following an assessment of the community's current water supply, "the Harrow and Colchester South water treatment tower and reservoirs are being steadily replenished and approaching standard supply levels."
