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 Canadian Columbia Basin, which supplies fresh water to millions of people in Canada and the United States, is under threat due to climate change, according to Living Lakes Canada (LLC). LLC is a registered charity affiliated with the German Global Nature Fund’s Living Lakes International, a global network of organizations that work to enhance, protect, restore and rehabilitate freshwater areas around the globe.
Water from the site of the Minto tire fire is still being collected and treated, more than two years after the fire burned for several days in the village. The Department of Environment and Local Government has previously told CBC News that a number of different contaminants have been found in monitoring wells, including "petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, dioxins and furans," as well as the pollutant perfluorooctanesulfonic acid.
An incident last summer where water was drawn for irrigation from the Dunk River in central P.E.I. during a drought would not be allowed under the new Water Act, says the province's manager of water and air monitoring. Bruce Raymond made the comments while appearing before a standing committee of the legislature. Last summer, five farmers in the Kinkora-Bedeque region were allowed to use surface water in the Dunk in August despite that waterway being 5 centimetres below levels when water use should be cut off, according to current provincial regulations.
Living Lakes Canada is receiving $1 million from the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, which is delivered by the Real Estate Foundation of BC and Watersheds BC, with financial support from the Province of British Columbia as part of its $10-billion COVID-19 response. The funding will go to development of a collaboration with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in the Columbia Basin to determine water monitoring priorities, and to train 25 people to conduct water monitoring and water-related restoration work. The data will help build climate resilience throughout the region, where melting glaciers, drier weather and diminished stream flows are signs that climate change is affecting water resources.
Spotty research and inconsistent monitoring have made it impossible to evaluate the health of most Canadian watersheds, a study has found. “It’s still largely unknown,” said Elizabeth Hendricks of the World Wildlife Fund, which has just released its second evaluation of the condition of Canada’s freshwater environments. Hendricks said the report points to the need for standardized, national water monitoring done by local communities.
