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.
As icebergs drifted by his Antarctica-bound ship, David Holland spoke this week of how the melting glacier he's cruising towards may contain warning signals for the coasts of far-off Canada. The atmospheric and ocean scientist from Newfoundland is part of an expedition to one of the world's most frigid and remote spots -- the Thwaites glacier in the western portion of the continent -- where he'll measure water temperatures in an undersea channel the size of Manhattan.
The small city of Iqaluit is facing a water challenge again after traces of fuel were found in the Nunavut capital’s drinking water last week. A precautionary boil water advisory issued Wednesday is in place and the city has shut down its water treatment plant because a breach in the system is suspected to have caused Iqaluit residents to smell fuel in their water.
Waste-water surveillance indicates the Omicron surge in COVID-19 cases appears to have plateaued or even begun to fall in major cities across British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, but this type of monitoring is carried out on less than two-thirds of Canada’s population. Sampling sewage to find population-level transmission trends is one of the most reliable methods of tracking the spread of COVID-19 as the swift spread of Omicron has swamped testing regimes across Canada.
New data shows that water temperatures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have reached record highs, with experts warning the increase could impact some species that live in the waters. According to new research, published Tuesday by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, warming ocean temperatures -- specifically those in deep water -- set more records in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2021 than in the past 40 years.
Water competition and conflict was the topic the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs dove into during its online session Thursday. Heading up the discussion was Dr. Dena McMartin, an environmental and agricultural engineer, faculty member and vice-president (research) at the University of Lethbridge, discussing the challenges, constraints and competing interests that are making water management increasingly difficult and important for southern Alberta.
Canada is partnering in an unusual mission measuring climate change in the Atlantic Ocean — it's using a 24-metre sailing yacht to deploy robotic sensors. The French sailboat Iris is in the south Atlantic right now in the midst of a three-month trip that will release 100 autonomous sensors, including a dozen from Canada, to measure ocean conditions.
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout is calling for $180 million from the federal government to “end the water emergency in Iqaluit.” The government should “fix an issue of basic human rights … as the federal government would for any other major Canadian city,” Idlout wrote in a Friday letter to federal Infrastructure and Communities Minister Dominic LeBlanc. Idlout didn’t say exactly what the money would be used for, but mentioned Mayor Kenny Bell’s recent statements that the city needs a new water source and treatment plant.
A study that links low summertime water flows in a British Columbia river with lower productivity across 22 generations of a struggling salmon population could help guide how rivers are managed to support fish, the authors say. The study, published Friday in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence, used data from 1992 to 2013 to examine changes in the productivity of early summer chinook in the Nicola River, a tributary of the Thompson River in B.C.'s southern Interior.
A First Nation on Vancouver Island is grappling with a loss of potable water after something — possibly a tsunami surge — damaged its underwater supply line on Monday. Ucluelet First Nation declared a state of emergency this week, banning the use of water for everything except flushing toilets, after a barge towing a log boom severed the line in the inlet between Ucluelet and the Indigenous community of Hitacu. “It’s challenging but we’re working through it,” said Ucluelet First Nation president Charles McCarthy. “Citizens are being informed about our situation as it progresses.” Right now, a tsunami surge following the violent eruption of an underwater volcano near the Tonga Islands is being investigated as a possible cause.
Rising temperatures led to at least 12 water main breaks overnight, leaving dozens of Calgary homes without water Thursday morning. The city website shows breaks and water outages all around the city. Emergency water wagons were distributed to affected neighbourhoods. Shane Eustace lost water to his Ogden home and hopes it gets restored soon. “It’s a little bit of a pain. It’s the first time we’ve had a water main out since we’ve been in the area and first time we’ve had to use the emergency water,” Eustace said.
January is typically the busiest month for water main breaks in Calgary, but this week more than usual have occurred. On Thursday, the city's website showed 12 broken water mains, seven of which ruptured Wednesday. "That's abnormal," said Lee Dupras, leader of repair and maintenance for drinking water distribution at the City of Calgary. "I have not seen that many in one day come in since I've been in this [department] of the city."
Despite a wetter-than-average December, water levels on Lake Superior are nearly 30 centimetres lower than a year ago, according to an organization that monitors lake levels. The International Lake Superior Board of Control said Lake Superior water levels in January are 28 centimetres below levels recorded a year ago, and seven centimetres lower than the long-term average between 1918 and 2020.
City of Iqaluit officials won’t venture any guesses as to when the water treatment plant will be back online. “I can’t even estimate at this point in time,” Coun. Kyle Sheppard said. The plant was shut down Wednesday to allow staff to inspect the facility to find the source of recurring fuel contamination of the city’s water supply. Nunavut’s Health Department put a boil water advisory into effect shortly afterwards. The city is currently pumping water from the Lake Geraldine reservoir through a bypass pipe that avoids contact with the tanks at the treatment plant. City spokesperson Stephanie Clark similarly said she couldn’t offer a timeline for when the water treatment plant will be working again.
Peat is partially decayed vegetation that accumulates in the cold, water-logged, oxygen-starved bogs and fens of the boreal. As temperatures warm, the peat dries out in the south and thaws in the North, where trees are drowning and rivers and lakes are browning with solid organic carbon that is dissolving in the water. This is leading to the release of massive amounts of carbon into rivers and lakes and the atmosphere. Given that peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests, climate scientists are closely watching these changes. In addition to mitigating floods, filtering water, and slowing or stopping wildfire, the peat-heavy boreal ecosystem provides nesting sites for one billion to three billion birds that journey north from as far away as Argentina.
While the City maintains its water infrastructure from the road to your property line, homeowners are responsible for maintaining the pipes on private property. There are a few tricks you can use to protect water service pipes on your own property, in between episodes of your favourite show! Here are a few you should know: Insulate all pipes located near exterior walls; Keep indoor air temperature above eight degrees Celsius throughout the winter; Seal air leaks in your home and garage, especially in areas where pipes are located; Visit ottawa.ca for additional tips to prevent frozen water service pipes
A Pickering, Ont. elementary school will soon bear the name of a female Indigenous leader from Manitoulin Island instead of that of the first prime minister of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald Public School, located at 777 Balaton Ave., will be renamed Biidassige Mandamin Public School, according to the Durham District School Board. Trustees voted in favour of changing the name at a meeting on Monday.
The excavation next door stopped 15 months ago but Wendy Richards is still digging out of the hole left behind. The Manotick woman has been fighting to have her property — and peace of mind — restored after unauthorized construction removed mature trees and a pile of earth within inches of her 1886 foundation. And, just when it looked like things couldn’t get any worse, my, how they did. “I don’t even know what to do anymore.” Richards woke up Jan. 11 to discover there was no water in the taps — frozen pipes, which she is convinced are a side-effect of her foundation now broadly exposed to the winter elements.
Toronto is hoping wastewater will be used as an additional tool to track the spread of COVID-19 in the community. Earlier this week, the city’s top doctor said staff would be collaborating with academic partners to launch a pilot project to understand more about this method of surveillance. “What we have figured out thus far is that it does correlate with clinical data,” Dr. Eileen de Villa said Monday at the city’s board of health meeting.
Residents of Hitac̓u, the heart of the Ucluelet First Nation, have been told not to drink, bathe in, or even clean with the water coming out of their taps. Water in the community goes on a return journey to become drinkable — it travels from Hitac̓u across the Ucluelet Inlet to the District of Ucluelet, where it is processed and then flows back to Hitac̓u as potable water. But the submerged water line it travels in is was hit and damaged by a barge on Monday.
Warming ocean temperatures — especially in deep water — set more records in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2021, according to climate data released Tuesday by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. "Everything about the Gulf of St. Lawrence was warmer in 2021," said federal research scientist Peter Galbraith, based at the Lamontagne Institute in Mont-Joli, Que.
