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.
Booming growth in Cochrane, Alta., is putting pressure on the town as it edges closer to maxing out its water licence capacity. Like other municipalities in the region, the town relies on a licence to draw the water it needs from the Bow River. But with no new water licences being granted by the provincial government and a growing population, the community needs solutions.
Environmental studies have been taking place at Pringle Creek over the past two decades to determine the extend and risks of chemical contamination to the Whitby, Ont., waterfront. Leanne Lumb-Collett, environmental program manager for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), said the source of contamination has been traced to a building adjacent from Pringle Creek, and started decades ago.
Wellington North council voted in favour of rehabilitating the Mount Forest water tower. Dayson Industrial Services Inc. will be doing the work at a cost of $1,545,727. “I think it’s a good news story to start with,” Coun. Sherry Burke said at a meeting earlier this week. The township will be getting $826,796 to help pay for it from the federal and provincial governments through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, ICIP. “We’re going to get some funding. So that is great. This project has been on the budget for a little bit,” Burke said. Burke explained why she feels the project is so important.
NSF, a leading public health and safety organization, announces the launch of protocol, NSF P524: Water Quality Test Devices for Drinking Water. This is the first-ever protocol that provides a standard third-party validation of the performance of water quality testing devices (WQTD) used in drinking water, ensuring public health protection by providing assurance that these crucial devices perform according to the manufacturer’s claims.
“I love teaching, but it’s great to have extra space and time in my position to focus on research,” says Julia Baird, Tier 2 CRC in Human Dimensions of Water Resources and Water Resilience. “Because of the dedicated funding, I was able to jump into projects immediately,” she says. “I hired a post-doctoral researcher a few months after I started. We ran with some really exciting ideas and now we’re doing something much bigger.” That groundwork enabled Baird to study how a person’s psychological traits — including empathy and the extent to which they believe they can influence outcomes — will affect the person’s attitudes towards water sustainability measures. She and her team have partnered with the Niagara Parks Commission, the Town of Lincoln and World Wildlife Fund Canada on the project.
She may have only been on this Earth for about a decade, but Maya Thiru is already making it her mission to care for the environment. To further tackle single-use plastic waste, 10-year-old Thiru is leading an initiative, ‘Maya’s Plastic Pollution Campaign’ supported by Friends of the Earth, a Canadian environmental advocacy organization, which aims to build awareness of the harm of plastic stickers on fruits and vegetables in grocery stores.
France's 100 departmental prefects should not hesitate to enact quick decrees restricting local water use given alarmingly low groundwater levels, French Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said on Monday. "We are sounding the alarm given the situation we now find ourselves in, as we near the end of what is usually the recharge period for (underground) water tables," Béchu said.
Emerging contaminants, such as medicine and other industrial waste, have been found in the waters of Granby, Bromont and Cowansville, even after being treated, according to a local environmental committee. Reports from the Organisme de bassin versant de la Yamaska (OBV) show concerning data for the environment, despite Quebec's director of public health, Luc Boileau, saying last week that water in the province is very drinkable.
Canada's single-use plastic regulations face their first legal test today as the plastics lobby and the federal government head to court. A federal court judge will hear arguments from lawyers on all sides from Tuesday to Thursday in Toronto. The federal judge, who is not expected to deliver a ruling for months, must consider whether Ottawa was justified when it listed plastic products as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
In 2019, Health Canada set new health-based drinking water guidelines for manganese, an essential element present in various foods. High concentrations can cause discoloured water and staining, but new research found it also impacts health. Long-term exposure in high concentrations impact childhood development, especially for infants who are fed formula prepared with tap water.
Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) is working to deal with drinking water issues on a First Nation near Prince Albert. People living on the Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) side of Little Red Reserve are being given bottled water due to a number of issues with the water infrastructure in the community. Curtis Bergeron, director for strategic water management at ISC in Ottawa explained the ministry is currently working with LLRIB to find a permanent solution to the water problems. Currently the water coming from the water treatment plant on the Montreal Lake side of Little Red is not considered safe for consumption. Many residents in the community as well have water holding tanks which are damaged and do not keep their water clean.
Transport Canada, the government entity dealing with maritime regulations and policies, will accept applications for research funding from Canadian vessel owners, operators, Canadian Port Authorities, not-for-profit organisations, public sector organisations and academia. Vessels need to use a ballast water management system (BWMS) to comply with the regulations and reduce the risk of introducing and spreading aquatic invasive species in Canada.
The B.C. government has announced what it says is significant funding to help protect the province's freshwater supply in partnership with Indigenous people. On Monday, Nathan Cullen, B.C.'s minister of water, land and resource stewardship, said $100 million is being invested in a watershed security fund co-managed by the B.C.-First Nations Water Table (BCFNWT), which includes members from the government and B.C. First Nations.
Alberta's energy regulator may have ignored provincial law by not publicly disclosing that waste from a large oilsands tailings pond was escaping containment and seeping into groundwater, says a lawyer. Drew Yewchuk of the University of Calgary's Public Interest Law Clinic is asking the province's information and privacy commissioner to investigate how and why the Alberta Energy Regulator chose not to release information on the leak at Imperial Oil's Kearl mine, despite direction in provincial law to do so.
The Canadian lunar rover could soon help reveal the far side of the moon. The country's first moon rover is set to put the Canadian Space Agency at the forefront of space exploration, helping in the global search for frozen water on the celestial body. NASA says the moon takes about 27 days to complete a full rotation on its axis as it orbits earth, leaving the same side visible from the ground at all times. As a result, the far side remains little understood and unexplored.
Canada's spy service warns that climate change poses a profound, ongoing threat to national security and prosperity, including the possible loss of parts of British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces to rising sea levels. A newly released analysis by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) also foresees an increase in ideologically motivated violent extremism from people who want to speed up climate change solutions and those more interested in preserving their current way of life.
Today, the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and Member of Parliament for Central Nova, Larry Harrison, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, and His Worship George Lloy, Mayor of the Town of Stewiacke, announced more than $6.2 million in joint funding to improve the Town’s water and wastewater infrastructure.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose restrictions on harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water after finding they are dangerous in amounts so small as to be undetectable. But experts say removing them will cost billions, a burden that will fall hardest on small communities with few resources. Concerned about the chemicals' ability to weaken children's immune systems, the EPA said last year that PFAS could cause harm at levels “much lower than previously understood.”
Celebrations in a beachside California city will soon have to take place without an iconic, single-use party favour: balloons. The city council of Laguna Beach, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, banned the sale and use of all types of balloons recently, citing their contribution to ocean litter as well as risks from potential fires when they hit power lines. Starting in 2024, people using balloons on public property or at city events could incur fines of up to $500 for each violation. (Balloons used solely within people’s homes are exempt.)
Tamara Brass lives at the Key First Nation. She told Yorkton This Week she enrolled in the course because of an interest in how people were accessing their water. On the Key First Nation Brass said about 80 per cent of residences access water through a treatment plant not unlike the one in Yorkton, only on a much smaller scale. The remaining residences have their own source of water. The Yorkton plant tour was one Brass said she found interesting in terms of the level of maintenance and testing employed to ensure water quality, adding it was good to get a look at what happens “behind the scenes” in terms of water quality.
