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.
Jamie Ruff says he received an upsetting call from his wife last week. In a bid to avoid a large pool of water covering a sidewalk in Marda Loop, near 35th Avenue and 20th Street S.W., she'd climbed into a snowbank and mistakenly fallen in, drenching her clothes in the process. Ruff immediately called the city. The buildup was coming from a blocked storm drain, and as temperatures warm and the snow blanketing the city continues to melt, the run-off had nowhere to go.
Air flowing over cold surfaces is an age-old concept that’s making a big comeback due to the increased attention being paid to carbon emissions and electrical grid demands. The ancient Persians used specially designed wind catcher towers, many of which can still be seen today in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Air funnels down to interior spaces through precisely designed openings and canals and sometimes across pools of cold subterranean water and then back up. Some water pools can even produce sheets of ice on their surface. The warm air rises and exits through another tower or opening, aided by the pressure within the building. Although there are variations to the commercial processes available today, the principals behind ice cooling remain relatively straightforward.
