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 Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) announced Wednesday that Hiberia will pay $400,000 in fines as the result of a 2019 oil spill on the Hibernia platform. The spill happened on July 17, 2019, when approximately 12,000 litres of crude oil mixed with water was released from the platform into the Atlantic Ocean. Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. said at the time the discharge was likely caused by a sensor issue and called it an isolated incident.
Welcome to the first stop on the journey of the story of plastic in Canada: the Athabasca region in Northern Alberta. The Athabasca has been home to Indigenous people since time immemorial and part of Treaty 8, originally signed in 1899. This is the territory of Cree, Déne and Métis nations who live and work in a beautiful and bountiful place. A place that also happens to be on the frontlines of one of the most destructive large-scale industrial projects in the world…the Alberta tar sands.
Less than two months after a spill at an oil pipeline dumped 900,000 litres of contaminated water–so called “produced water”–in northwestern Alberta, there’s been another spill in the oil-rich province. The latest spill, reported at 2 p.m on Christmas Day by a local landowner, occurred near Drayton Valley, a community about 130 kilometres southwest of Edmonton, the province’s capital city. Drayton Valley was the site of a spill–the result of a ruptured pipeline–that dumped 40,000 litres of crude oil into a local creek in August, 2019.
Canadian Rangers were expected to arrive in Neskantaga First Nation on Friday to help the remote community in northern Ontario as it grapples with a water crisis. Much of the First Nation was evacuated earlier in the month after high levels of hydrocarbons -- chemical compounds found in crude oil and coal -- were discovered in the water supply, forcing officials to turn off the pipes.
New rules cracking down on pollution from dirty, cheap marine fuel kicked into gear this week, placing stricter requirements on cargo vessels and cruise ships that are plying northern waters thanks to climate change. As of Jan. 1, Canada is enforcing a new UN-backed cap on the amount of sulphur allowed in heavy fuel oil (HFO) in the waters north of the 60th parallel, federal officials confirmed to National Observer on Thursday. The cap comes as Transport Canada considers a proposal to ban all HFO for ships operating in the Arctic, to address the environmental risks of oil spills.
An Indigenous-led group plans to offer to buy a majority stake in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline from the Canadian government this week or next, a deal that could help Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mitigate election-year criticism from environmentalists. The group, called Project Reconciliation, aims to submit the $6.9 billion offer as early as Friday, managing director Stephen Mason told Reuters, and start negotiations with Ottawa two weeks later. Project Reconciliation said the investment will alleviate First Nations poverty, a watershed for Indigenous people who have historically watched Canada’s resources enrich others.
