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.
Unseasonable warmth over much of British Columbia is showing no sign of easing, with another day of temperature records in the books and many regions reporting no significant rain since early July. Environment Canada says 11 daily maximum temperature records were set Wednesday across parts of Vancouver Island, the Central Coast, the southern Interior and southeast B.C. At 26.9 C, the Pemberton area broke a record that has stood since 1908.
Little to no rainfall over the past five weeks in several areas of British Columbia has prompted a warning from the Ministry of Forests about drought. The ministry says Vancouver Island, the inner south coast and the northeast corner of the provincehave reached the second-most severe level of drought on a five-point rating scale. A statement from the ministry says those regions are ranked at Drought Level 4, meaning conditions are extremely dry and will likely have unfavourable impacts on everything from jobs to ecosystems.
The British Columbia government has not effectively overseen the safety of the 1,900 dams it regulates, says the auditor general. Michael Pickup said the Ministry of Forests, Land, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development has not adequately verified or enforced dam owners' compliance with key safety requirements. "So I'm trying to balance making sure that it's clear to people that we're not suggesting, you know, dams are unsafe," Pickup told a news conference Tuesday.
