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.
Some residents of a public housing building near Liverpool, N.S., say they are frustrated after months of murky brown tap water — and they're questioning why they weren't told sooner that it contained high amounts of lead. The tenants of Riverside Apartments in Milton received a boil-water advisory from the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency in early July. The apartments are managed by the provincial government.
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.
Private well users in Newfoundland and Labrador are being encouraged to test the quality of their well water for free. The province said over 2,000 well water chemistry kits are still available for pick up through Digital Government and Service N.L. regional offices to provide well owners with detailed information on the chemical levels in their drinking water.
Through this investment, the Town of Kentville will install new water distribution pipes, sanitary sewer collection pipes and a stormwater management system as well as replace an existing water tank and treatment plant under the future Donald E. Hiltz Connector Road, which will connect the Kentville Business Park to Prospect Avenue. This investment will increase capacity to treat and manage wastewater and stormwater while opening up new land for to build housing in Kentville.
Hydrogen uses water as a feedstock, so production requires a dependable supply. Water, obviously, is vital for life, from drinking, to crops, to creating and sustaining ecosystems. Given how important it is to the one million-plus people who live in the capital region, we can’t allow industrial use to trump municipal use, or the critical agricultural sector that feeds our communities.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government has released a new plan aimed at improving drinking water safety in the province. The provincial government said from 2017-2022, there have been an average of 191 boil water advisories, which affected 146 communities and about 44,000 people. In comparison, there were 350 boil water advisories throughout the province in 2001.
The Canadian and Alberta governments will establish a federal-provincial working group to accelerate remediation of oil sands tailings ponds, the Alberta government said on Wednesday, as investigations continue into an ongoing tailings leak at Imperial Oil's Kearl project. Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Alberta Environment Minister Sonya Savage met on Tuesday to discuss the incident at the 240,000 barrel-per-day Kearl mining project in northern Alberta.
Almost three years after a major Saskatchewan irrigation project was announced, the head of a group representing rural municipalities says the provincial government should "get on" with it — while an organization that represents First Nations says the province should have consulted with those communities more. But where is the Lake Diefenbaker project now?
Living Lakes Canada is celebrating the BC Government’s decision to invest a historic $100 million into safeguarding the province’s watersheds. This unprecedented investment, announced as part of Budget 2023, will go towards the establishment of a long-term Watershed Security Fund that will be co-managed by B.C. First Nations and support communities to increase their adaptation options in anticipation of continuing climate change impacts. “Living Lakes Canada applauds the provincial government for taking this concrete step forward in watershed protection for the province,” said Kat Hartwig, Executive Director of Living Lakes Canada.
The Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association (OSWCA) recently made a pre-budget submission to Ontario Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy asking the provincial government to pass legislation that would require municipal and regional governments to operate their water and wastewater systems on a full cost recovery funding model.
Each year heading into spring melt, B.C. tries its best to predict how much water will runoff into Okanagan Lake and other water bodies in the province. It’s important information as the provincial government manages the lake level using a dam in Penticton and has to strike the right balance to ensure sufficient water in the lake to last through the hot and dry summer, but not so much it causes flooding.
The Ktunaxa Nation says it has been left out of conversations between the federal and provincial governments and mining companies – a feeling the nation says is validated by documents revealed through a Freedom of Information request. The request to uncover the documents was made by the Ktunaxa Nation. The nation, along with local activist group Wildsight, have long been ringing the alarm bells regarding the Elk Valley’s mining pollution.
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.
The provincial government is handing out free chemical testing kits to well owners throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. The pilot program looks to give well owners information on the safety of their drinking water and collect baseline groundwater data for the province. About 2,000 chemical test kits will be distributed. The kits can be picked up at no cost at various Digital Government and Service N.L. regional offices.
A spokesperson for B.C.'s Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship said talks are continuing and "we hope to have more to say about this soon". Since August the province has started issuing some drilling permits for leases with existing well pads, and other work that does not require land to be disturbed. Jeremy McCrea, an analyst with Raymond James, said this was a positive sign. Conversations with management teams indicate companies plan to increase spending in late 2022, suggesting these negotiations will be resolved by then, he added.
Two communities in southern Saskatchewan officially cut the ribbon Tuesday on a new $3.3-million wastewater treatment facility that is being touted as eco-responsible and award-winning. The facility will serve businesses and about 300 people in Lebret, and another 126 people in Wa-Pii Moos-Toosis on Star Blanket Cree Nation, according to a release.
The provincial government is planning to increase the fines for damaging the sensitive buffer zone around P.E.I.'s shorelines and waterways to $50,000, up from $3,000. The province has had rules for these ecologically sensitive areas since the late 1990s, including needing a permit to cut down trees or disturb the ground and soil in areas close to the water. But Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Action Steven Myers said those rules and the current fines aren't working. "We are finding that the low fine level is creating a lot of issues right across the board," Myers told Island Morning host Mitch Cormier.
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.
Despite seeing promising crop yields this year, there's a heightened sense of pessimism among Alberta farmers as the harvest season wraps up. Farmers said that barley and wheat crops were great, but the excessive heat and above-average temperatures over the summer created issues for other crops, like canola — and it's leaving them worried for the year ahead. "The crop utilized every ounce of moisture that was in the soil this year to produce what we got and our farming practices helped us produce what we have," said Larry Woolliams with Airdrie-based Woolliams farms. "But there is zero reserve."
