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.
Lynn Kriwoken dips a black rod into the deep waters of Alta Lake next to Whistler, B.C., about 157 kilometres north of Vancouver, and a bunch of different numbers start rapidly moving on her monitor. Depth, oxygen levels, turbidity and much more appear on the screen — metrics that measure the relative health of the water in the moment, and when done regularly enough, reflects the health of the lake over time.
The main contractor in charge of constructing the Site C hydroelectric dam project near Fort St. John in northeastern B.C. has been hit with a $1.1 million fine for dumping contaminated drainage water into the Peace River. The penalty was imposed after Peace River Hydro Partners pleaded guilty in provincial court in Fort St. John on Monday to depositing a deleterious substance into fish-bearing waters, a violation of the federal Fisheries Act, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada,
Severe sodium deficiency is referred to as hyponatremia in medical terms and is life-threatening if left untreated. In this, the concentration of sodium in the blood drops to an abnormally low level and this affects the individual because sodium is an electrolyte and it regulates the water content of the cells. When there is less sodium and more water in the body, the cells swell up and this triggers several health issues. The common symptoms of sodium deficiency are nausea and vomiting, headache, confusion, energy loss, fatigue, irritability, restlessness, muscle weakness, cramps, seizures and coma. These are initial signs of the disorder and one should visit a doctor immediately after identifying these signs.
Some Charlottetown businesses say they didn't get enough warning their water would be shut off for much of the day Tuesday. On Monday, the city issued a notice saying the Water and Sewer Utility would be conducting repairs to a leaking water valve near Grafton and Rochford streets. The notice stated customers in the area would be without water from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. AT on Tuesday. The outage was later extended to 5:30 p.m.
Metro Vancouver residents won't be able to water their lawns starting Friday as the region brings in new water restrictions to conserve drinking water. The region is activating Stage 2 watering restrictions starting Aug 4, as much of the province continues to experience hot, dry temperatures and significant drought conditions. The regional district says this is the first time restrictions have been raised beyond Stage 1 since 2015 when there was a low snowpack and dry conditions.
More than 100 households in Newfoundland and Labrador have learned their well water contains dangerous levels of arsenic — and hundreds more across the province may be drinking the toxin without knowing it. The Department of Environment recently released the first batch of results from its free testing program for private wells it announced last year.
Mooney's Bay beach has been closed as the city investigates a potentially harmful blue-green algae bloom on the water. Blue-green algae are a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria that can form large blooms on water, said Emily Morrison, program manager of the healthy environments team at Ottawa Public Health (OPH).
The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) announced Wednesday that Hiberia will pay $400,000 in fines as the result of a 2019 oil spill on the Hibernia platform. The spill happened on July 17, 2019, when approximately 12,000 litres of crude oil mixed with water was released from the platform into the Atlantic Ocean. Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. said at the time the discharge was likely caused by a sensor issue and called it an isolated incident.
You weren't imagining it — last month was an unusually hot and dry July in the Yukon. "Well, it was warmer in June, but boy did [temperatures] ever take off in July," said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada. "We saw temperatures in the Yukon that were two to three-and-a-half degrees warmer than normal."
Residents are concerned about the large number of dead fish found floating in the Ausable River in Port Franks, Ont., and are questioning the safety of the waterway used by boaters and swimmers. The municipality of Lambton Shores said it was alerted to issue on Saturday, with reports that hundreds of fish of various species were turning up in the marina and along the banks of the river, which flows into Lake Huron.
In portions of Halifax and central Nova Scotia, as an estimated 250 millimetres of rain fell last weekend, similar confusion and improvisation was unfolding, in what some experts say is the latest example of the province's inadequate state of preparation for climate disasters. The mayor of the Municipality of West Hants has said many residents reported they didn't receive any emergency alert at all because of the area's spotty cellular service.
Jean-François Boyer was awakened shortly after 4:30 a.m. Friday morning by someone pounding on his door urging him to look outside his third-storey apartment in Montreal's Saint-Michel neighbourhood. "I looked down from the balcony and saw that my car had water halfway up its doors," said Boyer. "I didn't know what to do." A major water main broke Friday morning, flooding streets in the neighbourhood and filling several basements and vehicles.
Yukon mine inspectors found a series of problems at the Hecla Mining Company's Keno Hill property, according to a recent report. Inspectors raised a number of concerns, including sediment runoff from tailings facilities, poor storage of hazardous materials, hydrocarbon stains on the ground, and discharged water that was toxic to fish.
People can still fish in parts of a Cape Breton river famous for its Atlantic salmon, but other sections are temporarily closed due to warm waters and a local non-profit group says climate change is to blame. Until recently, the Margaree River's cool waters were ideal for trout and salmon, but within the last five years, parts of the river have been closed to angling during the summer, said Paul MacNeil, president of the Margaree Salmon Association.
"For the first time coming to the island since I was a little child, I saw corn growing," Diabo, council chief responsible for the environment portfolio at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, said at a news conference Wednesday announcing the completion of the nearly decade-long project to restore water flow in the bay and naturalize its surroundings.
The City of Calgary says it has moved its drought monitoring dial to dry from normal. It says the decision is based on tracking of precipitation levels, reservoirs and lake levels, stream flow rates in the rivers and water demand. "Despite the moments of intense rainfall through July, our monitoring team continues to see impacts of this year's dry conditions across Calgary and the region," Sarah Marshall, the city's water resources planner, said in a statement.
The water temperature off southern Florida has been about 38 C two days in a row: that's as hot as a hot tub, as hot as the maximum recommended heat for a baby's bath, and hotter than what's usually recommended for a pregnant woman. It's also, meteorologists say, possibly the hottest seawater ever measured.
The First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer.
A First Nation, whose lake supplies drinking water to the city of Winnipeg, is suing for a century of alleged damages, according to a statement of claim filed Tuesday. The 13-page “injurious affection claim” seeks unspecified financial damages to compensate for the “devastating impacts of the Winnipeg aqueduct” that isolated the Anishinaabe community for more than 100 years.
Tuesday was a day like any other at the Grind & Vine — coffee was made, and customers were served. You’d be forgiven for not realizing the store had to be closed down a week ago due to a broken watermain. “Actually, we didn’t know until we got in to bake everything and to make coffee that we had no water coming into the building,” says Taylor Russett, owner of Grind & Vine.
