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 United States government, including President Joe Biden's White House, has joined calls for Canada to participate in a probe of cross-border pollution coming from coal mines in southern British Columbia. In a statement released last week, the U.S. State Department said Biden supports a joint investigation of selenium coming from Teck Resources' Elk Valley coal mines, which flows into rivers and lakes south of the border.
As a month’s worth of rain poured down over 48 hours, the rushing Coldwater River was one of many that breached its muddy banks Monday and filled up the streets of surrounding communities in southern British Columbia as though they were part of a stoppered bathtub. There were RVs collapsed and half submerged by the water. There were school playgrounds, turned to pools. In Merritt, B.C., as she worked to help drag stuck cars and trucks, Carly Isaac sent photographs to the Star with a comment. “Global warming.” She and the town’s roughly 7,000 residents would later receive the order to flee to either Kamloops or Kelowna, each over an hour away.
