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

watershed management

Alberta regulator rejects feedlot application near Pigeon Lake

Alberta regulator rejects feedlot application near Pigeon Lake

An Alberta regulatory body has turned down an application to expand a feedlot near a popular recreational lake, saying the location wasn't appropriate and would damage the local community. In a decision released Wednesday, the Natural Resources Conservation Board denied a plan from G&S Cattle to build a 4,000-head feedlot near the shores of Pigeon Lake, south of Edmonton. "I find that effects of this application on the community would not be acceptable, and that the proposed [confined feeding operation] would not be an appropriate use of this land," wrote approval officer Nathan Shirley.

New thinking required for our watershed management

New thinking required for our watershed management

Unprecedented changes are taking place in our rivers, creeks, and lakes. To ensure the long-term protection of our water sources, community-based water monitoring is becoming an increasingly important tool at local and regional levels. Water monitoring is used by governments and communities to assess the health of our watersheds and improve decision-making about our freshwater supply. Community-based water monitoring (CBWM) allows citizens to partner with decision-makers and work collectively towards watershed management.

Water Hub new home for Columbia Basin water data

Water Hub new home for Columbia Basin water data

The Columbia Basin Water Hub is a new open-source online platform for storing water-related data collected throughout the Columbia Basin region so communities and decision makers can have easy access to the important information they need for watershed management in an era of climate change. Climate change impacts on Columbia Basin water resources have been documented in numerous reports dating back to 2006. Last June, the University of British Columbia published a 30-year study suggesting the glacier-melt contributions in the Canadian Columbia Basin have already passed peak water, exacerbating a regional climate-driven trend to decreased summer streamflows.

Water wisdom on tap with new data-sharing platform

Water wisdom on tap with new data-sharing platform

In the same way that rivulets, rain, streams and snowmelt flow together to create a watershed, a new digital platform initiative led by UCalgary in collaboration with IBM pools together data from multiple sources — sensors, scientists, and citizens — to create an accessible information reservoir that will support improved watershed science, policy and management across Canada.

Follow us