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.
Four communities in New Brunswick will get a combined $22 million from the federal, provincial and municipal governments to support water infrastructure projects. Tracadie and Rivere-du-Nord will receive $13.2 million, with $8.8 million going to Bathurst and Belle-Baie. Tracadie will use the funding to support the second phase of its multi-phased project to renew aging sanitary sewer, water and storm sewer mains on Principale Street.
The City of Hamilton is asking the Ontario government to extend the deadline to clean up the sewage in Chedoke Creek by a year — to Dec. 31, 2023 — because of demonstrations from representatives of the Haudenosaunee Development Institute (HDI). It's also asking the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to issue an order to HDI to prevent the group from causing any further disruptions as it tries to meet ministry orders to clean up the 24-billion-litre sewage spill, a leak that took place over four years.
Iqaluit is under a city-wide boil water advisory again, and will likely remain so for several days, according to the municipal government. The advisory stems from repairs city workers were doing Tuesday to a water valve, which led to a water line losing pressure. Though precautionary, this is the latest in a series of water issues in the Nunavut capital over the past six months. A previous city-wide advisory in January lasted for more than a week; residents also spent nearly two months in 2021 under a do-not-consume order due to concerns about fuel contamination in the city's water supply.
The N.W.T. government says the Behchokǫ̀ community government, which includes Rae, Edzo and Frank Channel, is responsible for budgeting major repairs to its deteriorating water infrastructure. That's after residents in Edzo went weeks with brown water coming from their taps, or none at all. "This is a municipal government issue," said Municipal and Community Affairs Minister Shane Thompson.
Help could be on the way to update the North End Sewage Treatment Plant and fight pollution in Lake Winnipeg. The Lake Winnipeg Foundation, an environmental non-governmental organization, said the city is the single largest contributor of phosphorus in the lake, at around five per cent. Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid, parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change, told 680 CJOB the federal government is willing to do its part to tackle the problem, but the North End plant only serves as a starting point.
