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.
In Grande Cache, at a packed open house about the proposed mine held in July, questions about its environmental impact are top of mind for many in attendance. Maxim Power, the company pitching the new project, says that the mine will be underground, meaning local water will be more protected than in a surface mine.
Fracking is a process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks and release natural gas inside. Although fracking has been used in the U.S. since the 1950s, it was not until recently that this process made its way up to Canada. Currently, there is a moratorium on fracking in Quebec, but this process is still occurring in many other parts of the country. Fracking has been shown to have a number of negative environmental impacts, including water contamination, air pollution, and noise pollution. In addition, fracking can also lead to earthquakes. For these reasons, it is important for Canadians to be aware of the dangers of fracking so that they can make informed decisions about whether or not to support this process.
Sometimes there’s too much water; sometimes not enough. A major challenge with global heating is that it doesn’t necessarily cause more or less of something in a specific geographic area (hotter, colder; wetter, dryer); it just makes everything less predictable and often more extreme. Consider some late-summer headlines. Pakistan “faces ‘monsoon on steroids’ as more flood warnings issued”. In Spain, “Historic monuments resurface as severe drought shrinks reservoirs.” Melting Greenland ice is “set to raise sea levels by nearly a foot”. In Jackson, Also, in the U.S., “As Colorado River dries, the U.S. teeters on the brink of larger water crisis”.Mississippi, the “water system is failing, city will be with no or little drinking water indefinitely”.
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.
A series about the drinking water crisis still affecting First Nation communities in northern Ontario is a finalist for the 2021 Canadian Association of Journalists’ student award of excellence. Gigoo-Aakoosi: Fish Is Sick told the story of the Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek, also known as Grassy Narrows First Nation, and Wabauskang First Nation and the historical and ongoing devastation endured by those living with water contamination.
The "U.S Point Of Use Water Treatment System Market 2022" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. According to this report, Point-of-Use Water Treatment Systems market was valuated at $9.5 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $15.6 billion by 2022. Water purification has become the need of the hour as UN records more than 4 billion cases of diarrhoea every year due with the major cause being water contamination. Health institutes, public organizations, governments and NGOs have been aggressive in promoting many of these water treatment systems particularly in the developing countries where access to safe drinking water is limited or scarce.
The City of Iqaluit is getting closer to building its new landfill and waste transfer station. But not all councillors are on board with the current plans, citing sustainability, litter and contamination concerns. When the new landfill and waste transfer station was announced in 2018, it was supposed to be operational by 2020. But the deadline was pushed back — first to 2023, now to 2025.
A previous statement from the environment ministry stated the frozen ground and efforts by crews "greatly reduced the likelihood of contamination reaching the water table and entering local drinking water wells." However, residents are again raising their concerns after former employees came forward to allege the company dumped wastewater containing fuel into a ditch that runs alongside rail tracks behind the property.
Environmental groups are demanding data on water contamination in the vicinity of all Quebec's hydrocarbon wells drilled over the past 20 years. They say they deplore the absence of data on groundwater near wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- 19 out of 31 in the Saint Lawrence Valley. Their demand comes after analyses that concluded groundwater quality has deteriorated in the Murdochville sector of the Gaspé Peninsula, even years after exploratory drilling.
Residents who were left out of a class-action lawsuit for water contamination in a small town northwest of Quebec City are finally eligible to receive compensation after drinking water polluted with trichloroethylene (TCE), a carcinogenic degreasing agent, for decades. A panel of judges at Quebec's Court of Appeal unanimously agreed to modify an order made last year for the federal government and two private companies, Valcartier Real Estate Corporation and General Dynamics, to compensate residents affected by the contamination.
Blue-green algae has returned as the main suspect in the Grand Lake water contamination saga. “The National Research Council lab did confirm that there are what are known as … the toxins associated with blue-green algae that were collected on Friday,” Julie Towers, deputy minister of the provincial Environment Department, said at a news conference in Elmsdale on Tuesday afternoon.
Solution: Focusing on improving water quality in Indigenous communities, the team developed a device to help prevent water contamination in water cisterns using a hydraulic coupling on the water delivery hose and the cistern lid. Team members: Mikhail Ignatyev and Emilia Dyck, both from Kelowna, Sydney Strocen of Winnipeg, and Sam Keeble from Vancouver. These teams will now compete for $50,000 in seed funding and placement in a start-up incubator to further refine their solution and bring it to market, with the finals being held in September.
In Alberta, water users are granted the right to withdraw water from rivers and streams through a licensing system. In some watersheds, including the Oldman, that system is closed. There’s a finite amount of water available, and all of the licences are spoken for. The issue is not new. A water policy directive created by the Alberta government in 2006 found “limits for water allocations had been reached or exceeded on the Bow, Oldman and South Saskatchewan River sub-basins, putting at risk Alberta’s obligation to provide water to neighbouring provinces and conserve the aquatic ecosystem.”
