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.
A group of women in Pine Grove Correctional Centre are on hunger strike over alleged poor living conditions at the jail. Faith Eagle said she initially began the strike on Oct. 31 as a ceremonial fast for an inmate in the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, who she says can't visit his daughter in hospital. The fast escalated to a hunger strike against poor conditions, she said, including the quality of drinking water.
The Eastern Ontario Health Unit says the water meets drinking water standards, but the advisory recommends residents use bottled water or another source of water for preparing baby formula for infants and food or drinks for young people. "I’m not bathing my grandchildren when they come over and I have to have bottled water," Casselman resident Jocelyn Butler-Rohland said on Sunday.
Residents of a small Saskatchewan town can drink the water coming out of their taps for the first time in nearly nine years thanks to a new water treatment plant. Craik, population 400, has been facing a boil water advisory since August 2010, when the province found its old plant didn’t meet minimum disinfection standards. “Sometimes it was yellow and sometimes it was brown and sometimes there was dirt in it,” one resident recalled.
