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 state of local emergency has been declared in a village in central British Columbia as drought increases in severity across the province. As of midnight Wednesday, residents of McBride, a Robson Valley community about 180 kilometres southeast of Prince George, are prohibited from washing vehicles or the exteriors of buildings, filling up swimming pools, or watering lawns and gardens.
Experts say the NWT’s wildfire season could affect water sources by altering water quantity and quality, potentially straining treatment systems. The territory’s extreme 2023 wildfire season has already taken a heavy toll on residents and fouled air quality for months. But fires can affect water too – sometimes in substantial ways.Experts say the NWT’s wildfire season could affect water sources by altering water quantity and quality, potentially straining treatment systems. The territory’s extreme 2023 wildfire season has already taken a heavy toll on residents and fouled air quality for months. But fires can affect water too – sometimes in substantial ways.
The ducks and Canada geese are back on Moore's Pond in Stratford, P.E.I., now that the pond is again filling up with water after dredging removed sediment that's been collecting there for years. The town applied in 2019 for funding for the project, which also includes restoration work at nearby Kelly's Pond, part of the same watershed.
The ocean shelf off Labrador has hit record high temperatures this summer, according to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. St. John's-based DFO research scientist Frederic Cyr told CBC News the summer of 2023 has been "pretty incredible" for the world ocean. "The entire North Atlantic reached record high temperatures," said Cyr — although it's still generally colder than the rest of the ocean, he added.
"You're going to see the injustice with the water, you're going to feel it without us having to sit down with David Suzuki and tell you how it happened, or why. ... You're going to figure that out by the human interaction between these people telling you their stories, and Layla learned about her own story."
A University of Alberta researcher is receiving $1.4 million over seven years to support the creation of a circular water system. "Eventually we're going to have to be very careful with our water," Mohamed Gamal El-Din told CBC's Radio Active, after being named Canada Research Chair in sustainable and resilient wastewater treatment for reuse. He is one of 12 scholars at the U of A receiving the academic honour to advance their work for a greener future.
Joe Lacorne looks toward the Mackenzie River, a familiar sight for many decades. But the river doesn't look normal. "The water level is really low this year," he said. "It's hard to get around with even boats." Lacorne, who has lived in the tiny hamlet of Fort Providence, N.W.T., for about 60 years, said he keeps an eye on the river for his community. "Spring time, [it's] always like a big rush of snow melting and that's when the water is up high," he said. "But during the summer, we just lost water, just rapidly. Water disappeared."
Rivers are the veins of Earth through which nourishment flows—to both the natural and human worlds. They cradle vibrant ecosystems and sculpt our landscapes. They are the living henges we build so much culture, recreation, and commerce around. And their clarity, or lack thereof, points to their health, or lack thereof. And in many ways, our rivers’ health mirrors that of our own. In the expansive lands of Canada, many flow hale and lucid.
The International Joint Commission, a body that manages water rights along the US-Canada border, has confirmed its IT security was targeted, after a ransomware gang claimed it stole 80 GB of data from the organization. "The International Joint Commission has experienced a cybersecurity incident, and we are working with relevant organizations to investigate and resolve the situation," a spokesperson for the org told The Register.
TD Insurance has teamed up with the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) to launch the latest iteration of a program that offers strategies to minimize risks associated with extreme weather events. The newest Showcase Home initiative coincides with the growing threat of urban flooding in Canada. According to data from CatIQ, basement flooding and water-related incidents from the past year resulted in more than a billion dollars in property damage.
A boil water advisory has been issued for those on the Chatham-Kent Municipal Water Distribution Systems for Wheatley and Tilbury following a fire at a water treatment plant on Wednesday. "It has been found that the site has undergone significant damage and as a result the Wheatley Water Treatment Plant is not operational at this time," the municipality said in a media release Wednesday night.
The Halifax regional council will officially ask the province to buy a group of flood-prone Bedford properties. On Tuesday, council approved a motion from Bedford-Wentworth Coun. Tim Outhit to have Mayor Mike Savage write to Premier Tim Houston and ask for a provincial buyout program for Union Street properties damaged during July's extreme flooding. Outhit said these homes, which are all in a flood plain, are ones he's visited many times over the years as they've been damaged again and again by water.
Biologists are lending a helping hand to salmon in the B.C. interior that are struggling to make it to their spawning grounds due to severe drought conditions. Jason Hwang, vice-president of salmon with the Pacific Salmon Foundation, has joined Sarah Ostoforoff, a habitat restoration biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, at Kamloops Lake to reconnect it with Tranquille Creek so pink salmon currently trapped in the lake can start their spawning journey.
A joint investment of more than $1.7 million dollars to support two green projects in Saskatchewan has been announced. According to a release, Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs, PrairiesCan and CanNor on behalf of Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and Saskatchewan’s Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Laura Ross new funding will support upgrades to the Danielson Provincial Park sewage lagoon to ensure it complies with regulatory requirements.
Ontario may seem to be a water secure region, but new research out of the University of Waterloo challenges the myth of water abundance in the Great Lakes watershed. Using a first-of-its-kind risk analysis, researchers connected water quality, quantity, regulations and public concern to obtain a more comprehensive picture of water security at the local level. The novel approach revealed that at least half of the studied watersheds had a moderate to high potential for risk.
When documentarian James Burns and Apache guitarist Stevie Salas set out to create a film that examined the ongoing impacts of the water crisis in Indigenous communities, the two knew they wanted the final piece to be an exploration of identity and how it's tied to Earth's most abundant natural resource. The result is an ambitious 104-minute documentary that blends unscripted real-life moments with scripted vignettes to go beyond the template of using statistics and experts to put the spotlight on an issue that transcends geographical boundaries.
An outbreak of E. coli infections at several Calgary daycares has infected more than 260 people, most of them children. It's not the first major outbreak of the food-borne illness, which is caused by bacteria that live in the feces of animals and is carried to humans through undercooked meat, unpasteurized food or contaminated water. The E. coli variant known as 0157 is often the most virulent and can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome, which affects the kidneys and the ability of blood to clot.
A photo of Lake Okanagan won the Judges' Favourite Award in the Lake Landscapes category in the 2023 Lake Biodiversity Photo Challenge, organized by Living Lakes Canada. For the first time since the contest was launched in 2020, photos were submitted from every province and territory across the country. There were 629 submissions this year and a Public Favourite winner was selected in four different categories using an online voting system where a total of 1,609 votes were cast in August.
"We have groundwater levels dropping dramatically. We have river levels that are very, very low," said Tom Pypker, chair of the department of natural resource sciences at Thompson Rivers University. "This has implications for farmers who need to extract water to irrigate their crops. This has implications for cities that need to draw water out of these surface water bodies to supply their population."
Residents say they're frustrated with the slow progress of the cleanup of two Etobicoke creeks nearly a month after runoff from a massive industrial fire polluted them and caused devastation to wildlife. Ontario's Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks says it is continuing to assess the environmental impact after a six-alarm fire on Aug. 11 at Brenntag Canada, a chemical distribution company that operates an industrial building in north Etobicoke, caused runoff to enter both Mimico Creek and Humber Creek.
