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.
Washington state officials and farmers are calling on the British Columbia government to act on water quality reports that show large amounts of bacteria are flowing from north of the border into the Nooksack River watershed. They say high levels of fecal coliform — of which E. coli is a subgroup — are flowing from a Fraser Valley creek into Pepin Creek in Washington before entering the Nooksack, which empties into the sea near shellfish beds owned by the Lummi Nation.
