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.
In Ottawa's vast rural boundary, you can clear cut privately owned woods on entire lots, even through floodplains and shorelines, without a permit. You can also dump clean fill, significantly altering the grade of a lot and how water drains from it, before having to submit a building application and a grading and drainage plan.
Heavy rainfall and isolated thunderstorms are expected to hit pockets throughout the GTA Saturday, which can bring about flash floods, water pools on roads and localized flooding in low-lying areas, Environment Canada warns. The federal weather agency says 50 to 75 millimetres of rain is possible in areas as far west as Guelph to east beyond Kingston. Heavy showers have already begun and are expected to continue on and off throughout the day, with a forecasted end this evening.
A mild winter has meant not very much ice has formed on the Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. "This year is an extraordinary year," said Steve Salmons, president and CEO of the Windsor Port Authority. Salmons says the lack of ice means ships have easier time of navigating but it doesn't mean a higher volume of goods moves because most ships are taken out of service for winter maintenance and the locks close seasonally anyway.
If you walk along one of Nova Scotia's many shorelines, you'll see rocks, shells, and mounds of seaweed. But some of those beaches are also riddled with colourful rubber bands, ropes and fragments of plastic. According to Angela Riley, founder of Scotian Shores, a local business dedicated to cleaning the shorelines of the province, the province's biggest industry is also behind much of the pollution found near the ocean.
Communities across Canada will head to the water on Sept. 17 for International Coastal Cleanup Day to recover litter from shorelines, parks, and other natural places in their communities. In B.C. the cleanup is planned at English Bay in Vancouver. There are also cleanups planned at Black Rock Beach in Halifax and Woodbine Beach in Halifax. This is also the first year a cleanup will be hosted in the U.S., with details to come. Since 1994, Ocean Wise has organized nearly 1 million volunteers participate in Shoreline Cleanups, collecting more than 2.1 million kg of trash across Canada’s shorelines.
Residents in Greater Victoria are being advised not to enter the water at two shoreline locations due to wastewater discharge after heavy rain. The two affected shorelines are between Tarn Place and Seaview Road (Cadboro Bay), and between Radcliffe Lane and Trafalgar Park (McNeil Bay). Warning signs have been put up at beaches in both areas, and will only be removed after tests confirm bacteria levels are below acceptable levels.
The annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup’s (GCSC) 2020 report has revealed an increase in single-use plastic food and beverage litter found on Canadian coasts — nearly doubling the amount recorded in 2019. Single-use food plastic takes up 26.6 per cent of all waste collected in this year’s program, while it only made up 15.3 per cent of the 2019 report.
Brock Biological Sciences Professor Liette Vasseur is helping municipalities to mitigate damage to their shorelines and plan for a more sustainable future. Vasseur is part of a Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative called the Mayors Advisory Council on Coastal Resilience. The council was established to work with mayors of municipalities on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border to develop recommendations on how to mitigate the considerable damage to their shorelines caused by erosion, flooding and other impacts, and adapt to increasing water level fluctuations and other extreme weather events.
