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.
An aquatic invasive species has been discovered at a lake in Riding Mountain National Park, according to Parks Canada. This month, preliminary test results from water samples collected at Boat Cove in Clear Lake throughout the summer suggested the presence of zebra mussels, a spokesperson for Parks Canada told CBC News on Monday.
The threat of invasive mussels has led the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) to propose a potential temporary ban on all out-of-province boats entering B.C.'s waterways. James Littley, deputy administrator for the OBWB, said two species of freshwater mussels — zebra and quagga mussels — could be catastrophic to lake and river systems if stringent measures aren't put in place to keep them out of the province.
Keeping aquatic invasive species out of Jasper National Park is easy as long as every person cleans, drains and dries their watercraft after every outing. To drive home that message, Parks Canada is offering new summertime services including having staff rotating around several high-use water bodies to educate visitors on the risks and about what they can do.
Baljot Rai arrived carrying his project sign, covered with signatures of other students he met at the fair. Rai was selected as a finalist for the Canadian Stockholm Junior Water Prize for his work using zebra mussel shells to absorb phospherous in water. He and two other students from CWSF will submit reports on their projects, and the winner will compete for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize in Sweden in August 2023.
Parks Canada says genetic traces of zebra mussels found in a recent water sample taken from Clear Lake aren’t cause for undue concern. Although tests for environmental DNA for the invasive species came back positive last month, it could have come to the lake on a boat, water toy or other source, without the transfer of any living mussels. Living organisms like zebra mussels, which originated from the lakes of southern Russia and Ukraine and were introduced to many countries worldwide in the 1980s, shed DNA all the time, says Borden Smid, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada.
Zebra mussels have already wreaked havoc in the Great Lakes, altering ecosystems and the food chain, and damaging water pipes in municipal water systems, power plants and other industrial sites. Now the invasive species has spread — or been carried — to the east and is at the edge of New Brunswick. Zebra mussels have been discovered in the St. John River watershed, according to the New Brunswick Invasive Species Council. "We are saddened to share that an established zebra mussel population has been discovered in Lac Témiscouata, just across the border into Quebec," the council announced on its website Thursday.
Blue Massawippi, a non-profit based in the Eastern Townships, gets its name from the lake it's been protecting since it was created in 1968. These days, the group of volunteer conservationists watching over the Massawippi, one of three major lakes between Sherbrooke, Que., and the Vermont border, is in the fight of its life. "For the first time this year, in October, we found some zebra mussels on our collectors [in Lake Massawippi]," said Philippe-David Blanchette, one of the organization's directors.
