Long-term water quality monitoring, run by the federal government, has resumed at key sites in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
The Government of the Northwest Territories announced the development in a press release, Wednesday afternoon.
In a previous email, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) says the department began suspending certain environmental monitoring activities “related to non-critical services.” This was done in an effort to prioritize the health and safety of the workforce, the release says.
Some of the suspended activities included routine freshwater quality monitoring.
As result of the suspended monitoring, the GNWT temporarily took over ECCC’s monitoring at key sites in Alberta and the NWT.
These sites include Peace River at Peace Point, the Slave River at Fitzgerald in Alberta, Hay River near the Alberta-NWT border and above the mouth of the Slave River.
The ECCC has resumed monitoring at all these sites, the release adds.
Provincial monitoring in Alberta — which was previously suspended as a result of the pandemic — has already resumed. So has long-term federal monitoring at important sites on the Athabasca River.
Water quality monitoring in the NWT continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with a slight delay, the release concludes.
