What is a watershed?
A drop of water plummets out of a dark grey blanket of cumulonimbus gathered around the craggy peak of a…
A watershed based approach to assessing water quality in Cheakamus/Green River watersheds
Raincoast’s Healthy Waters Program was designed to assess the impacts of human activities on water quality in British Columbia, so…
Needed: A freshwater protection strategy for Bowen Island
In early June, Dr. Peter Ross of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation presented Bowen Island Municipal Council with the results of…
Traces of human sewage in Grafton Lake
When we recently conducted a comprehensive ‘state of the water’ report on Grafton Lake – the source of drinking water…
We are encouraged by the federal government’s decision to grant our request to prioritize the tire chemical 6PPD for assessment
6PPD is an additive that manufacturers use to prevent tires from degrading. Over time, tires release particles and chemicals that…
Sampling water during the wet season: A new partnership with the Lower Nicola Indian Band reflects a shared interest in protecting water
A cool, gray sky lingered overhead, as we headed inland. Our journey took us through the Lower Fraser Valley, over…
Sharing our plans for our future mobile lab
The Healthy Waters team has been busy this winter, with field work in seven watersheds, stretching from the Chemainus River…
Building capacity to better protect water
Our Healthy Waters Program is transitioning from an idea into an exciting community-oriented water pollution monitoring initiative. We have been…
Help us build our new mobile lab, Tracker
I trod down the gravel path between my home and the ferry dock at Snug Cove on Bowen Island. The…
Preliminary study of water quality in streams discharging into Fulford Harbour raise questions about land-based pollution
Water is vital to life, and on the Gulf Islands, efforts to understand, monitor and protect watersheds are increasingly needed…
Mapping the Semá:th X̱ó:tsa (Sumas Lake) region following the BC floods of 2021
The catastrophic floods of late 2021 in southern British Columbia (Canada) and neighbouring Washington State (USA) destroyed homes, farms and…
Biosolids pose a threat to healthy waters
Wastewater includes everything that is flushed down toilets and drains from households, businesses, and some industries and institutions. In Canada,…
Job Posting: Water Quality Coordinator
We are seeking an energetic and committed candidate who will coordinate sampling and analysis of samples as part of the…
What does Canada’s ban on the manufacture and import of six types of single-use plastics mean?
Plastics are everywhere. Even when we try to escape from our plastic-crazy world, we run into it on our favourite…
From laundry to the ocean: fixing the microplastics problem in clothes
Plastic pollution might be on everyone’s mind these days, with discarded fishing nets, beverage cups, bottles, straws and grocery bags…
Working toward healthy waters for people, salmon, and whales
The value of our Healthy Waters Program became evident this past fall when melting snowpack and an atmospheric river delivered…
A former lake re-emerges: A backgrounder
The catastrophic floods of late 2021 in southern British Columbia (Canada) and neighbouring Washington State (USA) destroyed homes, farms, and…
Help us design, build, and deploy our new mobile lab
Last month, many of our supporters voted for us in Land Rover’s Defender Series Award when we were trying to…
Vote to help Raincoast win a Land Rover to launch our mobile lab, Tracker
Last year, we launched our Healthy Waters Program to provide a much-needed community-oriented water pollution monitoring capacity, and bring insight…
Assessing whether the 2021 floods caused a spillover of pollutants into fish habitat in the lower Fraser Valley
The catastrophic floods caused by a series of atmospheric rivers, early and sudden snowmelt in the mountains, and several dike…
Rising waters, pollution spillover, and salmon habitat in the Sumas Lake area of the Lower Fraser Valley: The catastrophic ‘atmospheric rivers’ of 2021
November of 2021 was a month like many others for the temperate rainforest of coastal British Columbia – variable winds…
The MV ZIM Kingston incident brought near-disaster to killer whale critical babitat: more questions than answers
It is November 24, 2021, and the MV ZIM Kingston still lies at anchor off Victoria, waiting for a port…
Unpredictability of spills and how we are addressing them
Spills of oil and chemicals into British Columbia’s freshwater and ocean environments have killed fish, degraded habitat, and led to…
Plastic pollution threatens salmon, whales and people
Plastics from just about every sector can now be found all over the world – from mountain tops to the…
