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.
With a recent donation in Quebec, Labatt Breweries of Canada has donated more than a million cans of water to support communities with 24 distributions in seven provinces over 11 years. Established in 2012, Labatt's Canadian Disaster Relief Program was created to provide safe drinking water to Canadian communities experiencing disasters such as flooding, forest and wildfires, environmental spills, drought and ice storms that compromised a community's water supply.
A reserve in central Manitoba has access to clean drinking water after what the community says was almost two decades of trucking it in. On Oct. 29 this year, Nibi Envirotech finished installing a water filtration system, giving residents of Tootinaowaziibeeng Treaty Reserve — also known as Valley River First Nation — access to potable water.
Wheatley's water treatment plant might not to be return to normal operations for a year or more, but a boil-water advisory isn't expected to last that long, officials said Wednesday. The communities of Wheatley and Tilbury in Chatham-Kent have been under a boil-water advisory for a week after fire caused damage to the water treatment facility.
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 Okanagan is one of Canada’s most water-stressed regions and local organizations are hoping to take steps to conserve water in communities, which in turn allows for crops, wildlife and more to thrive across the valley. With temperatures rising and summer approaching quickly, residents are being reminded to think about one of the most important resources: water. “It’s incumbent on us to protect our water source and the biggest pillar in that is conservation and this is an effort to take those necessary steps to conservation,” said Blair Ireland, mayor of Lake Country.
Indigenous communities in Canada's oil sands region on Monday called for Alberta's energy regulator to be disbanded and replaced following a months-long toxic tailings seepage from Imperial Oil's Kearl oil sands mine. Community representatives were testifying to a parliamentary committee in Ottawa about the impact of the leak and ongoing concerns about oil sands tailings management.
Water levels are beginning to rise in parts of New Brunswick, with two communities already under a water-level advisory and another one set to move to a watch by weekend, according to the province's River Watch website. An water-level advisory is two metres below flood stage, and a water-level watch is one metre below, according to the site.
To date, the Government of Canada’s investments have improved access to safe drinking water by building or rehabilitating over 1,000 water and wastewater systems, strengthened communities with 800 projects to improve cultural and recreational spaces, and enhanced public transit systems by acquiring over 4,200 public transit vehicles like buses, subway cars and light rail transit trains.
With inflation driving construction costs higher than in previous years, local service distracts are having trouble coming up with the 10 per cent in funding they need to tackle important infrastructure upgrades. When small communities and local service districts in Newfoundland and Labrador need to build roads or water treatment plants, most of the cost is covered by the provincial government. But some districts have started to run into problems, when jobs can no longer be done for the amount of money available by the time tenders go out.
Canada has lifted 137 long-term drinking water advisories on reserves since November 2015. That’s equal to 82 percent of long-term advisories in the last seven years, the government claims. Still, the Liberals fell short of their promise to lift all drinking water advisories by March 2021. There are currently 31 long-term advisories still in place in 27 communities. And a document tabled this week in the House of Commons shows the work doesn’t end once an advisory is lifted. According to the document, tabled in answer to a question from Conservative MP GARY VIDAL, four First Nations have seen long-term drinking water advisories recur on five water systems that previously had advisories lifted.
A stewardship group in Sudbury, Ont., has installed eight catch basin filters on local waterways that have collected 31 kilograms of garbage so far. A catch basin consists of a grate and a drainage pipe, which are meant to collect large debris.The newly installed filters would help to catch smaller debris such as cigarette butts. The Junction Creek Stewardship Committee received $98,296 from Environment and Climate Change Canada's EcoAction Grant program to install filters into catch basins throughout the city.
The Government of Saskatchewan is putting $1.9 million towards remote monitoring technology for rural water treatment facilities. The 10 projects will go through the Saskatchewan Advantage Innovation Fund (SAIF) and the Agtech Growth Fund (AGF), run under the auspices of the Innovation Saskatchewan government agency. One of the projects will be led by Saskatoon-based Delco Water, which is working with rural municipalities and First Nations, including the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, to develop and pilot remote sensing technologies.
In the far northwest of Manitoba, the Seal River flows 260 kilometres through the thick boreal forest into Hudson Bay. It's the only major river in northern Manitoba without any dams. No roads lead to the river, and there's only one human settlement in the river's watershed. That community, the Sayisi Dene, is leading an initiative along with neighbouring Dene, Cree and Inuit communities to protect the 50,000 square kilometres of the watershed. That's an area of untouched wilderness roughly the size of Nova Scotia, which would be protected from industrial development if the community's proposal is accepted.
Today, the Government of Canada, along with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), announced an investment of $348,460 in seven Nova Scotia communities. This funding will help them make data-driven decisions about key infrastructure and ensure long-term infrastructure performance. The Municipality of the District of East Hants is receiving $50,000 to assess current capacity of a water treatment plant and a wastewater treatment plant and compare that capacity to future treatment requirements. It will also collect asset management data for computer modeling of existing water, wastewater, and stormwater systems to determine asset needs.
When people use freshwater beyond a physically sustainable rate, it sets off a cascade of impacts on ecosystems, people and the planet. These impacts include groundwater wells running dry, fish populations becoming stranded before they are able to spawn and protected wetland ecosystems turning into dry landscapes. Developments in computer models and satellites have fostered a new understanding of how freshwater is being redistributed around the planet and have made clear the central role that people play in this change. This human impact is so significant that organizations like the United States Geological Survey are redrawing their water cycle diagram to include the impacts of human actions.
Jennifer Bauer was doing her dishes when she noticed something was wrong with the water coming out of her tap. It was brown. "I was like, 'what the heck?'" she said. "I can't even describe it. It was so disgusting." That's when the mother of six found out that her town of Assiniboia had been placed on a precautionary drinking water advisory the day before.
Ward 5 incumbent Corey Gardi is calling on mayoral candidates to support his efforts to get the federal government to establish the Canada Water Agency in Sault Ste. Marie. Gardi, who spearheaded the initiative, is leading a task force that has obtained letters of support from many local and regional organizations, agencies and communities who want to see the proposed agency in Sault Ste. Marie. “The mayor (Christian Provenzano) has taken the time to contribute to the task force, and has joined me in meeting with representatives of the federal government, to keep them apprised of our efforts, and to clearly articulate why the Sault would be an ideal place for the agency.”
Despite tireless advocacy, the federal government is still denying Indigenous communities much of the funding they have requested for discovering the remains at former residential schools and healing programs. Across the country, there are still 32 long-term boil water advisories in effect in 28 communities, and at least 45 short-term drinking waters advisories in Indigenous communities. More troubling, as Indigenous women and girls face an ongoing genocide, the government has failed to build new shelters to help Indigenous women and gender-diverse people and children flee violence.
Residents in Rouleau and Wilcox and surrounding rural municipalities can enjoy clean, quality drinking water now that construction of a new water treatment plant is finished. More than a dozen people — including both mayors, municipal officials, provincial dignitaries, and project contractors — gathered in Rouleau on Sept. 28 for a grand opening ceremony to celebrate the $10.6 million regional water system project.
