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.
The concrete landscape of our country’s developing cities is accelerating the loss of absorbent ground, with ever-increasing amounts of water having no place to go.
Paving over porous paradise, or any absorbent ground, increases the risk of basement flooding, say researchers using City of Toronto data.
A Sooke-based company has become the first in Canada to desalinate and sell bottled ocean water.
Saltwest Naturals sells a range of sea salt products using water from the Salish Sea off Vancouver Island's southwest coast, and more than 400 stores across Canada carry the line.
But it wasn't until a chance conversation that one of the company's owners realized he could tap into a new market – bottled seawater.
'We're coming together to make awareness to take care of the water,' says elder Shirley Williams
In 2003, when Anishnaabe elder Josephine Mandamin took her first ceremonial water walk around Lake Superior, she wanted to share the message that the water is sick and people need to fight for that water, to speak for that water and to love that water.
On Monday, people in Cape Breton reserve advised not to use tap water to wash clothes, bathe or drink
A group of First Nations chiefs in Atlantic Canada is blasting the federal government for what it sees as a lack of action in fixing the yearlong water problem in Potlotek First Nation in Cape Breton.
High levels of iron and manganese exceed 'esthetic objectives' for water quality
A year after residents of Potlotek First Nation in Cape Breton rallied to protest the quality of their drinking water, the community has been advised by Health Canada not to drink the water, bathe in it or even wash clothes in it.
While the Canadian government says it's on track with its 2016 promise to bring safe water to First Nations communities within five years, some are still calling it an ambitious plan.
"First Nations communities are not homogenous. And the water source is not a homogenous source either, for these communities," said Lalita Bhardawaj, a toxicologist and public health professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
Behind every failed First Nations water plant is an unfortunate story. Assigning blame can be challenging: Although Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) pays for most on-reserve infrastructure and sets most of the rules governing design and construction, many other parties are involved, including project managers, engineering and construction firms and First Nations chiefs and councillors.
