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.
I’m up to my knees in water, socks and sneakers submerged — why not? — a few hundred metres west of where Billings Bridge crosses the Rideau River. Not far from a busy, noisy, fumy stretch of Bank Street that typifies much of urban Ottawa, I’m stepping carefully over stones covered in seaweedy slime, immersed in a world of fish and frogs and dragonflies, between mainland Old Ottawa South and my magical destination: a small, unnamed, kidney-shaped island just off the Rideau’s north shore.
Metro Vancouver has higher-than-average levels of opioids and methamphetamine in its waste-water system compared with other Canadian cities, according to a new Statistics Canada study analyzing cannabis and drug use in the country based on what Canadians flush down their toilets. In contrast, Vancouver reported less-than-average levels of cannabis in sewage, casting doubt on the city’s reputation as Canada’s cannabis capital.
It is becoming an increasingly common story - Another city is running out of drinking water. Chennai, India, the country's sixth-largest metropolis with 4.65 million people, is facing a dire water shortage. The coastal metropolis is the world's first major city to be facing a severe water shortage, but several large cities around the world may soon face a similar crisis. The four reservoirs supplying the region have dried up, leaving small potholes filled with muddy stagnant puddles of dirty water.
A Calgary mom was unnerved to find out she and her two young children may have been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water at their home for the past year — and hundreds of other Calgarians are in the same boat. "It's just unnerving that we've been there for a year and that we could have been drinking lead water for the last year. There's a bit of a panic," she said, adding the situation feels out of her control because the rents the house, which is in Hillhurst.
