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.
Joanne Dally, 63, says she doesn't know when she will be able to host her next dinner party — she hasn't had running water at home since mid-October because the well on her property, her only source of water, has run dry. "We have to go to relatives to shower, we have to haul our water in totes, go to the laundromat," said Dally, who has lived in her home, a few kilometres west of the Fraser River near Prince George, B.C., since 2013.
A farmer north of Edmonton considers himself lucky to have survived this harvest season. That's no joke about poor weather conditions and long hours in the combine. The evening of Sept. 26, Andy Shwetz in Waskatenau was heavy harrowing (breaking up and spreading straw on a combined field) on a quarter of land that contains a former town water well.
With the reservoir low, residents in Alma, N.B., are being asked to conserve water. This comes just days after the Municipality of Fundy Albert advised residents to boil their water. Fundy Albert Mayor Robert Rochon said the issue isn't a lack of water as much as an aging system that can only fill the reservoir so fast. He said the reservoir is fed by a well that can pump 50 gallons of water per minute, but the demand on the system exceeds that.
An update on the area of notification connected to the fuel leak at the Lhtako Gas & Convenience Store has been provided. SLR Consulting, the environmental consultant hired by Lhtako, says the area of notification for tap water sampling includes 36 separate legal properties off-reserve, and 1 on-reserve property. It says 30 off-reserve properties and the 1 on-reserve property have been tested as 4 of the legal properties share a well with an adjacent property and one has no building and is not occupied. SLR says to date the water on just 3 properties have been identified as having concentrations of gasoline-related parameters above Health Canada and provincial drinking water criteria.
The boil-water advisory in St. Stephen will remain until at least the end of the week after the town administration underestimated the amount of time it would take to get test results on its water supply, according to a statement the town released Wednesday. "It is with our apologies that we now say that the earliest we may receive the results from the bacterial growth tests will be the end of the week," said Wednesday's statement.
A water quality advisory has been extended for the lower zone of the Okanagan Falls water system. Announced earlier this week, the Regional District for Okanagan Similkameen (RDOS) says the advisory for manganese will remain in place until further notice. The regional district says it “recognizes that residents in the lower zone are continuing to encounter poor water quality and the RDOS is working on making changes to the water system with the anticipation of long-term improvements to the water quality.”
Debby Rideout had her whole future ahead of her. In August 1987, Rideout had just gotten married, and was already hatching plans to open her own hair salon. Just two days after her wedding, which crammed a hundred revellers into a nearby Lions Club hall, she moved from her hometown of Twillingate to picturesque Moreton’s Harbour, into a cozy wood-panelled home she built from the ground up with her husband, Chris.
Roughly forty years later, an account of the drilling activity by an elderly man who had worked on the well was published in the Ottawa Citizen. That article stated that the drilling had ceased after nine months at about the 1,800-foot mark when the well hit sulphur water. The well wasn’t a total failure, however. So strong was the water pressure that the sulphur water apparently came to the surface and continued to flow. A pipe was installed, with people coming far and wide to drink the water. Not only was sulphur water prized for its supposed medicinal value, it must have been of far better quality that the water the city piped in to residents from the grossly polluted Ottawa River.
Members of the Cowichan Tribes First Nation on Vancouver Island are relieved to finally have drinkable water coming from their taps, though some members are still going without. Clean water is a necessity that many in Canada take for granted, but for 20 households on Indian Road in the First Nation on southern Vancouver Island, it's only recently become accessible.
The Regional District of Nanaimo received $931,000 in grant funding for phase two of the Whiskey Creek Water Supply Upgrade project. The regional district will install a transmission main from the existing well to the reservoir to replace the temporary overland main, modernize the distribution pumping and control system and install backup power. When phase two of the project is complete later this year, the Whiskey Creek Water Service Area will have a secure, permanent and resilient water system.
With many residents of Woodlands County utilizing well water, the municipality hosted a virtual workshop on October 21 on managing wells. The event streamed live and enabled attendees to ask questions in real-time. Multiple specialists were on hand, including Jeff Hammer, a Public Health Inspector for Alberta Health Services. Hammer discussed the importance of testing water and why it’s essential to do so. “We have two types of tests available at the health units. One is a bacteriological bottle which we test for total Coliform and E. coli. Total Coliform is an indicator of bacteria, and E. coli is basically fecal matter which you never want to see. The other type of test we have is a chemical water sample. It does a bunch of minerals and metals and has some more health parameters associated with it.” Hammer said that some of the minerals and metals tested for include manganese, lead, arsenic, and the pH value of the water.
Water is flowing through the taps once again in Big Grassy River First Nation after three months without consistent, potable water. However, the current water is untreated and coming directly from Lake of the Woods as the community waits for repairs to the water filtration system. The result is that community members have had to go to the beach to collect water for basic sanitation needs, and buildings have been shuttered and the school remains closed to students until a running, drinkable water service is restored.
Nestle Canada Inc. says it is selling its Pure Life bottled water business to Ice River Springs as Ontario prepares to give its municipalities veto power over new water bottling permits. The sale for an undisclosed price is expected to close in the third quarter and is contingent on regulator approval. The sale includes two factories located in Puslinch, Ont., and Hope, B.C., along with a well in Erin, Ont.
A decision on how to proceed with water bottling permits is expected by early to mid-December, with a review nearly complete, Ontario's Environment Minister Jeff Yurek said Thursday. A moratorium on new and expanded permits to take water for bottling, which was put in place by the former Liberal government in 2017, and was extended last year by the Progressive Conservatives, is set to expire on Jan. 1. Yurek said his decision will be based in science, though if the government can't find a "conclusive way to go forward" he would extend the moratorium again.
Cheesemakers in Ontario are taking a hard look at their water use with an eye to improving quality and sustainability. Though the industry is considered a "medium" water consumer by experts, an estimated 10,000 litres of water go into producing a single pound of cheese when the entire production line is taken into account.
For well over a year, Rob and Connie Crow have struggled to keep their failing water well from quitting altogether. First the water softener stopped working. They discovered the water coming from the well carried a gritty substance that left an oily film on their hands. Rob shrugs when asked what it is. "I can guarantee you it's not good for you," he said.
