Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

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.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

water quality problems

Monitors doubt Teck mining company’s water fixes selenium issue

Monitors doubt Teck mining company’s water fixes selenium issue

As Teck Resources hopes to expand its mountaintop-removal coal mining in British Columbia, water quality monitors in Canada and the United States warn the company’s existing mines already cause significant ecological damage. In 2019, the company’s research revealed that more than 90% of the cutthroat trout population had vanished in a 37-mile reach of the Upper Fording River near its mines around Sparwood, British Columbia. On March 26, Teck pleaded guilty to two counts of illegally discharging selenium and other pollutants into the watershed and paid a $60 million fine – the largest of its kind in Canadian history.

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