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.
Five days after a contractor damaged water and sewer lines that forced a community near Calgary to declare a state of emergency, repairs are underway. On Oct. 21, the City of Cochrane revealed that an unnamed contractor, doing work to twin the town’s sewer line, “impacted” sewage and water lines while preparing to drill. The two ruptures sent sewage and water into the Bow River, Cochrane and Calgary’s water source. The significant loss of water reduced the town’s water availability.
A town west of Calgary says it continues to truck in water from other communities to maintain its required levels. The Town of Cochrane has declared a local state of emergency after an accident Saturday affected its water and wastewater pipelines, causing sewage to flow into the Bow River. Officials in both Cochrane and Calgary, which draw water from the river, say the drinking water remains safe.
Ottawa restoration companies are inundated with calls from households beset by sewage backup from Thursday's flash floods, which caused "catastrophic" damage to some homes. Deven Raval, owner of PuroClean, called it "mayhem." He said his company normally deals with five or so calls per day. But this has been different. "My phone's going crazy," he said, as rings repeatedly interrupted an interview. He'd already fielded about 70 calls as of Friday morning. He said four of every five relate to sewage.
The federal government has made new anti-pollution measures mandatory for cruise ships, but environmental groups say they don’t stop contamination of some of Canada’s most sensitive coastlines. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced recently that voluntary guidelines established in April are now mandatory. Those rules cover the discharge and treatment for so-called black water, or stuff from toilets, and grey water, kitchen water, water from laundry machines, and water containing cleaning products, food waste, cooking oils/grease and other pollutants.
The federal government says some new cruise ship pollution measures are now mandatory, but environmental groups say the move still doesn't plug gaps that permit the ongoing contamination of some of Canada's most sensitive coastlines. Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra announced Friday that voluntary measures established last April on the discharge and treatment guidelines for sewage (black water) and grey water - which includes kitchen water, laundry detergent, cleaning products, food waste, cooking oils and grease as well as hazardous carcinogens and other pollutants - will be mandatory immediately under an interim order.
Canada on Friday banned cruise ships from dumping sewage and dirty water close to shore and said it would impose fines of up to C$250,000 ($190,000) for offending vessels. A range of anti-pollution measures introduced on a voluntary basis in April 2022 will become obligatory with immediate effect, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said in a statement.
Although the COVID-19 spread is no longer an ongoing pandemic in the eyes of the World Health Organization, the federal government will still be monitoring potential spread rates through waste water. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced that the Public Health Agency of Canada is partnering with the Canadian Water Network to monitor Canadian wastewater. Duclos said in a statement how this national wastewater surveillance program will help keep Canadians healthy through guidance materials and wastewater data.
Officials are investigating after raw sewage started spilling into the Capilano River, one of the largest rivers flowing through Metro Vancouver's North Shore. The Squamish Nation, whose territories encompass much of North Vancouver, first reported the leak publicly on Friday. B.C.'s environment ministry later said it first heard about the sewage four days earlier, flowing out a storm drain outfall pipe from a private property near Fullerton Avenue in West Vancouver.
The European Union should consider immediately scaling up genomic sequencing of COVID-19 infections and monitoring of waste water, including from airports, to detect any new variants given the virus surge in China, the bloc's health chief said. In a letter to health ministers of the EU's 27 members, Stella Kyriakides said the bloc should be "very vigilant" as China lifted travel restrictions on Jan. 8 as reliable epidemiological and testing data for China were quite scarce.
The City of Hamilton estimates 337 million litres of sewage — roughly 135 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of sewage — flowed into the harbour since 1996. That's roughly 13 million litres per year for 26 years. "City staff developed this estimate based on the water meter usage data for all of the properties connected to the combined sewer pipe," read a media release from the city on Monday morning, adding this method was identified as the most accurate way to represent the discharge over the 26 years.
The issue of non-flushables, such as wet wipes, plaguing wastewater authorities across Canada has added a new concern as Canada’s opioid crisis is resulting in more spent needles in sewer clogs. “We are running into more needles because of the opioid crisis and there are needles galore in the sewage system,” said Barry Orr, who for more than a decade has been Canada’s leading voice in the fight against non-flushables, a member of an international committee concerned about non-flushables and establishing standards for what is deemed flushable in sewer lines. He is currently the sewer outreach and control inspector for the London, Ont.
The City of Hamilton is asking the Ontario government to extend the deadline to clean up the sewage in Chedoke Creek by a year — to Dec. 31, 2023 — because of demonstrations from representatives of the Haudenosaunee Development Institute (HDI). It's also asking the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to issue an order to HDI to prevent the group from causing any further disruptions as it tries to meet ministry orders to clean up the 24-billion-litre sewage spill, a leak that took place over four years.
A major leak in Whitehorse's sewage system was repaired mid last week, but the extent of the procedure's environmental impacts are still unknown. The Marwell Lift Station, which acts as a conduit for the majority of the city's wastewater and sewage, was recently closed for a week to allow crews to investigate and fix the leaking pipe. During that time, the city opted to temporarily include bypass valves to dump a large volume of raw sewage into the Yukon River.
People in several Brampton neighbourhoods are grappling with swamped basements and other property damage Monday, one day after heavy rainfall caused localized flooding — and Environment Canada is warning the Greater Toronto Area could see more of the same Monday night. Prince Sharma was one of dozens of people who called the city about flood damage Sunday night. He told CBC News he was having dinner with his family when the storm hit. He said he heard running water so he went to inspect the basement of his Hardgate Crescent home, located near Wanless and Van Kirk drives.
Swimming and other water activities are expected to resume in Charlottetown Harbour on Wednesday, three days after 6,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage was discharged into the water. The leak began Sunday when construction crews on Water Street hit a sewer pipe by mistake, sending enough sewage to fill 2½ Olympic sized swimming pools into the harbour.
Mayoral candidate Rana Bokhari promises to spend more money replacing combined sewers in Winnipeg. Bokhari pledged Monday to increase annual spending on replacing combined sewers with dedicated pipes for sewage and stormwater from $45 million every year to $60 million. Combined sewers, which lie below older parts of Winnipeg, carry both runoff from the surface and sewage from homes and businesses. This mixture is pumped to one of the city's three wastewater treatment plants. When heavy rains exceed the capacity of city pumps, rainwater-diluted sewage overflows into the city's rivers. That, in turn, results in more nutrients — primarily phosphorus and nitrogen — flowing through Red River into Lake Winnipeg, where they promote the growth of algae and alter the ecology of the lake.
Residents of a small community in the Halifax area are upset that they weren't consulted about a new seniors housing complex pumping treated sewage into the lake from which they draw their drinking water. The proposed "age-in-place campus," which includes four apartment buildings and a long-term care facility, is expected to be built at 1109 Fall River Rd., with wastewater from the planned on-site treatment facility being piped underground to the middle of Lake Thomas.
According to disturbing reports out of Niagara Falls, New York, millions of gallons of untreated sewage and other wastewater poured into the Lower Niagara River this past weekend during a power outage and pump failure. The Buffalo News reports that Niagara Falls’ problematic wastewater treatment system failed both Saturday and Sunday, according to information provided by a state-automated emergency alert system. Although there was no unusual rainfall in the area lately, wet weather and pump failure were given as the reasons that six millions gallons of untreated wastewater went into the river on Saturday.
John Giesy helps run a level two biosafety lab at the University of Saskatchewan. “Level four would be where you’re working with things like anthrax, and everyone is in hazmat suits,” the toxicologist and environmental chemist explains. At the Saskatoon biolab, people sit before fume hoods, “where we vent things and filter things, so we’re not releasing anything to the environment, and our people aren’t exposed.” One of the things they’re filtering is wastewater, searching for signals of SARS-CoV-2 from human stool.
Surveillance of wastewater data is suggesting that COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in Canada as provinces have eased public health restrictions. The resurgence is taking place in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of British Columbia, according to an analysis by Global News. “The reality is that as all of the restrictions come off in terms of masking and the other measures which have been in place for some period of time, we can expect that more cases are going to be out there,” said Dr. Steve Hrudey, chair of the research advisory group of the Canadian Water Network COVID 19 Wastewater Coalition. “The next few days to weeks are going to be important to watch,” he said.
