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.
An oily container confused for a clean one is what left half of Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., without usable tap water for a month this past spring, according to government emails obtained by CBC. On March 23, a do not consume advisory was issued from the territory's chief environmental health officer after the smell of fuel and an oily sheen was found in water deliveries, according to a news release at the time.
The City of Iqaluit is distributing water from Sylvia Grinnell River Monday in response to complaints that the smell of fuel has returned to the city’s treated water. The water depot will be open from 3 to 8 p.m. at the Elders Qammaq, according to a news release issued by recreation director Stephanie Clark. The city is asking residents bring refillable containers, and to boil the water before drinking it or cooking with it.
Six days into the flood, Harman Kaur and her husband took a drive past their acreage and found thousands of their ruby-red blueberry bushes were still completely buried in the murky, brown floodwater. Leaking pesticides swirled around the field. Garbage and gas tanks floated past. The smell of fuel filled their noses. "There was a complete layer of oil on top [of the water], and we're talking what I could just see from the road," said Kaur, 29, whose family has owned their farm in the Arnold area of Abbotsford, B.C., for more than a decade.
