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 City of Iqaluit says its water treatment plant is to return to service Tuesday morning, more than a year after it was shut down due to contamination. The plant was initially shut down in October 2021 after fuel was detected in the city's water supply. A do-not-consume order was lifted in December of that year, but less than a week later it was discovered the water was contaminated by a tar-like substance.
One of the municipalities most affected by an oil spill from Algoma Steel on the St. Mary's River does not yet know when it will be able to reopen its water treatment plant. Lynn Watson, mayor of the Township of Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional, which includes the village of Echo Bay, said they shut down the water treatment plant's intake last Thursday, as soon as Algoma Steel alerted them of the oil spill.
A Travellers Rest business has taken responsibility for a recent wastewater spill and is working to make sure it never happens again. The spill was noticed on Dec. 27, when Chris Wall, who lives in the adjacent community of New Annan, saw that the stream on his property was filled with smelly, grey water. “Seventy-five feet from the brook, I could smell the potato leachate,” said Wall, whose property is more than a kilometre from P.E.I. Potato Solutions, which has offered washing and sorting services to farmers across the Island since 2014. Wall snapped photos showing what he described as an unusual, thick, grey cloud of material in the stream, a tributary to the Barbara Weit River. He immediately suspected the wash plant and went directly to the culvert that exits the property, where he photographed dirty water flowing off-site. Wall reported what he saw to the Department of Environment.
The Liberal government will miss a target it set during the 2015 federal election campaign to lift all long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations by March 2021 — in some cases by several years — according to a survey of communities by CBC News. More than a dozen First Nations said projects to end long-term drinking water advisories won't be completed by the promised deadline.
