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.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is repeating promises to update legislation that governs water use. Trudeau, while formally announcing the Canada Water Agency will be headquartered in Winnipeg, says his government will update the act around the use and development of the resource in Canada. Trudeau didn’t provide details about how the Canada Water Act would change.
During their two-day visit, which was closed to the media, officials from the Japanese government and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, showed the 21-member delegation facilities related to treatment, safety checks, transport and dilution of the waste water. The plan has faced fierce protests from local fishing communities concerned about safety and reputational damage. Neighboring countries, including South Korea, China and Pacific Island nations, have also raised safety concerns.
A tactical evacuation is underway once again in the Rock Creek area near Dawson City, Yukon, as the Klondike River continues to run dangerously high. Officials have issued another flood warning for the area, a little more than a week after an earlier warning was downgraded to a flood watch. A tactical evacuation means that residents are advised to leave the area, but are not under an evacuation order.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeated promises Tuesday to update legislation that governs water use while formally announcing the Canada Water Agency is to be headquartered in Manitoba's capital city. Trudeau said his government's first priority is to update the act regulating the use and development of the resource in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday reannounced the new Canada Water Agency, which will protect the country's freshwater supply and be headquartered in Winnipeg. "This province is home to over 100,000 lakes and rivers, with water flowing in from the Rockies and the [United] States, all the way out to Hudson Bay," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday, overlooking the convergence point of two of those rivers — the Assiniboine and Red — at The Forks in Winnipeg.
A group that claims to speak on behalf of citizens of Kanesatake is calling for an independent commission of inquiry with the participation of the United Nations on the crisis in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice participated in a demonstration that brought together about 25 people in front of the office of the Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller Tuesday in Montreal. The MP brandished a container of gray and opaque water in front of the journalists, demanding a parliamentary commission concerning the alleged toxic discharges into a watercourse adjacent to the G&R Recycling site at the northwest end of Kanesatake.
Two water-related notice of motions are slated to come before Chatham-Kent council for discussion and voting May 29. At a recent planning meeting, South Kent Coun. Ryan Doyle announced he is bringing forward a motion on the Aqua City inflatable play park proposed for Erieau beach. The motion involves approvals on storage facilities for Aqua City on municipal land, profit sharing with the Erieau community, as well as the federal and provincial parameters that must be met. As well, North Kent Coun. Rhonda Jubenville is bringing forward a motion to encourage the municipality to revisit the water wells issue in Dover and the former Chatham Township, coming on the heels of recent independent well testing that found heavy metals in the sediment that may be bio-accessible to humans and harmful to health.
A southwestern Manitoba First Nation is using $12 million in federal funding to ensure on-reserve members have access to potable water for generations to come. Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller was in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, located 260 kilometres west of Winnipeg, Tuesday announcing $12 million in federal funding to help build water and wastewater system upgrades.
Arizona, California and Nevada on Monday proposed a plan to significantly reduce their water use from the drought-stricken Colorado River over the next three years, a potential breakthrough in a year-long stalemate over how to deal with a rising problem that pitted Western states against one another. The plan would conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water from the 1,450-mile river that provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes.
The water Bump used to make Revival came from the northwestern edge of Los Angeles, where the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District recently opened a small demo facility as a showcase for the public to learn about potable reuse. Las Virgenes depends entirely on water from the California State Water Project, a 700-mile system of canals, dams and pumps that transports fresh water from the northern part of the state. After that water passes through toilets and drains in the district, it goes to a traditional waste treatment plant; from there, it’s either discharged into a local creek (and eventually into the Pacific Ocean) or sent through specially designated purple pipes to irrigate parks and golf courses. Three years ago, Las Virgenes began piping a small fraction of the plant’s outflow — about 1 million gallons a day — into the demo facility, where it is put through the additional steps of ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO) and an ultraviolet-advanced oxidation process (UV AOP) to be brought up to state’s standards for recycled drinking water. Each step in this alphabet soup of water tech removes increasingly small contaminants, from bacteria to viruses to salts and hormones.
The treatment was designed by researchers at the University of British Columbia, and it utilizes a silica-based material that can absorb up to 99 percent of the forever chemicals found in water. The PFAS are then removed from the material, which can be used again to remove even more toxins. The potential here is exceptional, allowing us to remove these dangerous chemicals from water completely.
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.
Toxic "forever chemicals" are being found in the blood of Canadians — and even higher levels are being found in northern Indigenous communities — says a new report from the government of Canada. Health Canada and Environment Canada have released a draft assessment of the science on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Both departments propose listing the human-made chemicals as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). Canadians have until mid-July to weigh in on the proposed change.
The City of Yellowknife says the cost of a new underwater pipeline to its municipal water source has risen from $34 million to $57 million in the four years since federal funding was received. The city has almost $26 million in federal cash from a disaster mitigation fund to put toward the pipeline from the Yellowknife River to its treatment facility. Initially, that left the city with $8 million to find. But a fresh assessment of the project puts the bill at $23 million more than was first thought in 2019, before the pandemic and various global supply chain issues. Under its agreement with the federal government, the city has to find all of that extra cash – a total of $31 million once you add the cost increase to the initial $8 million.
Canadian and U.S. officials have wrapped up the latest round in a five-year negotiation to modernize a major treaty on flood control and power generation on the Columbia River. Global Affairs Canada says negotiators from both countries in the Columbia River Treaty met in Kelowna on May 16 and 17, and the next round of talks is scheduled for Aug. 10 and 11 in Seattle.
Indigenous Services Canada has issued a Boil Water Advisory to ensure the safety of the community. Copies of these orders can be found at rmwb.ca/water. At around 6:15 a.m. (May 19, 2023) the Janvier water treatment plant temporarily shut down causing a loss of pressure to the water distribution system. At approximately 8:30 a.m., the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) was able to return the plant and distribution pumps to normal.
