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.
Environmental studies have been taking place at Pringle Creek over the past two decades to determine the extend and risks of chemical contamination to the Whitby, Ont., waterfront. Leanne Lumb-Collett, environmental program manager for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), said the source of contamination has been traced to a building adjacent from Pringle Creek, and started decades ago.
Homes in Sachs Harbour are once again getting water deliveries after the community went without for over a week, and some households had to rely on bottled water and other sources of potable water. On March 23, after signs of fuel contamination were found in some trucked water, people in the community were asked to switch to bottled water and other sources if they'd had a water delivery since March 21.
An Iqaluit city official told CBC News that an underground fuel spill found near the water treatment plant could explain why the city had to declare an emergency due to fuel-contaminated drinking water. "The team located an underground spill that showed signs of historic fuel adjacent to the water treatment plant in an inaccessible, below-ground void," Amy Elgersma, Iqaluit's chief administrative officer, told Mary Tatty, host of CBC's noon hour program, Nipivut.
