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.
Students at one of western Manitoba's biggest high schools will not be able to attend class on Tuesday. A water main break near École secondaire Neelin High School on Monday has temporarily resulted in no access to water and washroom facilities, the Brandon School Division announced in a memo. The division asks students to connect with their respective teachers remotely for online studies Tuesday, with the expectation of returning to classes Wednesday.
Iqaluit is under a city-wide boil water advisory again, and will likely remain so for several days, according to the municipal government. The advisory stems from repairs city workers were doing Tuesday to a water valve, which led to a water line losing pressure. Though precautionary, this is the latest in a series of water issues in the Nunavut capital over the past six months. A previous city-wide advisory in January lasted for more than a week; residents also spent nearly two months in 2021 under a do-not-consume order due to concerns about fuel contamination in the city's water supply.
William Hintz, an assistant professor in the University of Toledo’s Department of Environmental Sciences, recently researched the deicing salt Americans use for roads and its relation to the survival of freshwater ecosystems. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the research, the buildup of salt (especially in freshwater ecosystems), which come from humans’ agricultural and mining activities, deicing salt operations, and more, impacts freshwater systems, reported Inverse News. Humans are dependent on freshwater ecosystems for drinking water. The Great Lakes on the Canada-U.S. border provide drinking water for more than 40 million Americans, reported Inverse News.
A report from one of the country’s largest and longest-standing conservation organizations shares the positive results it’s having on biodiversity and climate change thanks to support from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program. During the past two years of the program, Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) has delivered 106 habitat projects in areas of the country with the greatest conservation need.
The municipality is hoping the second time’s the charm in securing a grant to help cover costs of upcoming water supply upgrades at Eagle Cliff. The neighbourhood is in need of an improved water supply, and steps to creating their own are too numerous to overcome. The main holdup would be rehabilitating the existing surface water reservoir, which is in need of serious repairs. As a result consultations between Eagle Cliff and Cove Bay local advisory committees (LAC) determined the best alternative was a hookup to the Cove Bay water system. 110 Eagle Cliff properties are set to join once the connections are made.
A weekly news show produced with photos, videos and personal accounts from FRANCE 24 Observers around the world – all checked by our staff here in Paris. This week on The Observers, we go to Ecuador, where more than a million litres of oil spilled in the Amazon rainforest after a pipeline ruptured on January 28. The company that manages the pipeline said it was damaged by falling rocks, brought down by erosion and heavy rain, claiming that the incident "could not have been foreseen", but our Observer says that's not the whole story.
Nova Scotia Power burned through another $2.2 million from ratepayers late last year at its ill-fated refurbishment of the Tusket hydro dam near Yarmouth, N.S. The disclosure of contingency spending during the last three months of 2021 was ordered by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board after the company told the regulator on Jan. 31 it was halting work yet again due to water seepage. The company filed its contingency spending to meet a Feb. 23 deadline imposed by the regulator.
Since 2019, David Piano has used his considerable photography skills to document soil erosion along Lake Erie's north shore. Focusing on a stretch of almost 200 kilometres of lakefront from Port Burwell to Wheatley, he's captured images of crumbling cliffs and cottages swallowed by lake water eating away at the shore. Lake Erie's soil erosion problem isn't new. For years, property owners have been lobbying governments and spending thousands to combat erosion that threatens buildings, many of them seasonal cottages that have been in families for decades.
British Columbia Premier John Horgan has named Vancouver Island MLA Josie Osborne as Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship and Minister Responsible for Fisheries. Osborne, the representative from Mid Island-Pacific Rim and former mayor of Tofino, was appointed to the newly created role at Government House in Victoria on Friday.
The Department of National Defence continues to investigate the discovery of harmful chemicals in the area of CFD Mountainview in Prince Edward County. The DND has been working since spring of 2021 to address the issue after per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances (PFAS) and benzene were discovered near the landfill at the detachment. The PFAS on the property are thought to mostly be related to the past use of firefighting foams for training while the benzene may be the result of past fuel use storage practices.
Grand Forks, B.C., resident Les Johnson is compiling photos to preserve the memory of a flood-damaged neighbourhood before it's fully gone. In May 2018, heavy snowpack and several days of torrential downpour caused local rivers in the southern Interior B.C. city to overflow. This led to severe property damage in the neighbourhood of North Ruckle, which sits on the bank of the Kettle River in the province's Kootenay-Boundary region.
The owner of a long-standing marina in Port Stanley, Ont. estimates he faces $150,000 in damages due to flooding caused by an ice jam in the harbour. Warming temperatures and snow melts led to rising water levels beginning late last week. The water carried the ice jam through Kettle Creek in nearby St. Thomas to Port Stanley, leading to the closure of the King George VI Lift Bridge. David McNiece, who owns Stan's Marina, said two metres of water built up around the marina.
The regional district won’t be assuming control of any more water systems for the next five years. The board agreed to extend the current moratorium on acquiring new systems until 2027. Although a Water Services Committee is almost in place to deal with water system issues in the RDCK, staff says it still makes sense to maintain the moratorium.
The City of Iqaluit is getting closer to building its new landfill and waste transfer station. But not all councillors are on board with the current plans, citing sustainability, litter and contamination concerns. When the new landfill and waste transfer station was announced in 2018, it was supposed to be operational by 2020. But the deadline was pushed back — first to 2023, now to 2025.
It’s been two years in the making, but it’s finally complete. Ducks Unlimited Canada has recently completed a two-year restoration project at a significant wetland in the Holland Marsh. “The big push for this restoration project was for improved fish habitat,” said Jennifer Lavigne, a conservation specialist with Ducks Unlimited Canada. There isn’t a lot remaining of the historic 9,000-hectare wetlands that was once a part of the landscape as it has been converted into working fields. In Bradford West Gwillimbury, a 218-hectare wetland is still protecting wildlife and clean water, according to Ducks Unlimited Canada.
A University of Saskatchewan professor says recent coronavirus monitoring in Saskatoon's wastewater has found levels among the highest point reported during the pandemic. Researchers from the university's Global Institute for Water Security continue to monitor wastewater from Saskatoon, North Battleford and Prince Albert for the viral RNA load of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Fun Fact: Because of advances in soap and detergent, there is no difference between using hot water and cold water when washing clothes. The only difference is you’re spending more money using all that hot water because approximately 75 per cent of energy used in a load of laundry is to warm the water.
It just keeps coming. More snow. For many parts of the Canadian Prairies, it's more of the white stuff than they've seen in years. At Stan Jeeves's cattle and grain farm near Wolseley, Sask., 100 kilometres east of Regina, strong winds have blown the snow into huge piles that engulf his hay bales. He's already had more than 60 centimetres of snow this winter, compared with just three centimetres at this point last winter, according to Environment Canada data. "I think it's given me some optimism, for sure," Jeeves said. "We're receiving fairly regular snows, and so if that continues through the growing season into timely rains, we should be much better off than we have been in the past two or three years."
Weather in Canada is getting warmer, wetter and stormier due to climate change. Extreme weather events that we used to experience twice a century are now expected to happen every six years. Did you know that since the late 1940’s, in Canada: Average temperatures have increased by 1.3 degrees Celsius; Average rainfall has increased by 12 per cent; and We experience an additional 20 days of rain each year?
The salinity of freshwater ecosystems caused by road de-icing salts, agriculture fertilizers, mining operations and climate change is increasing worldwide and current water quality guidelines don’t do enough to address the issue, an international study led by Queen’s University and The University of Toledo has found. The research, conducted in collaboration with dozens of scientists across North America and Europe, shows significant damage is being done to freshwater lakes by salt concentrations that are below ranges government regulators have deemed safe and protective of freshwater organisms.
