Water quality at risk in Aboriginal communities

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Despite the recent announcement by Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice that a national water quality standard was going to be put in place, many public works officials in Aboriginal communities in Alberta remain sceptical.

Clarence Faithful of the Frog Lake reserve located near St. Paul stated that his community has been under a boil-water advisory since last summer. "In the long run it's been a good thing, because it made the federal government accountable," said the 20-year employee. "We did get some funding from the Liberal government, after five years of lobbying, to do some very urgent repairs and we'll be in pretty good shape once the work is completed this spring," he said.

Faithful said that representatives from Frog Lake plan to meet with Prentice soon to discuss several upcoming issues for which they are going to need federal funds.

"We do a capital plan from year to year and define all our health and safety projects, and water is important," he said. The reserve gets its water from Frog Lake, treating and chlorinating the resource itself. "Our filtration system wasn't working properly. Basically we needed more than chlorine to ensure the safety of our water supply and they have given us close to $1 million towards immediate repairs."

Faithful has mixed feelings concerning the funding of Technical Services Advisory Group (TSAG) in Edmonton, which is getting a major influx of funding with the expectation that it will train First Nations individuals to operate their own systems, he said. "The expertise needs to be developed at our level, not in one city-based organization." TSAG provides technical services and training for Alberta First Nations in the Treaty 6, 7, and 8 areas, specializing in housing, public works and community facilities.

As of February of this year, 10 Alberta First Nations were under boil-water advisories, some going back to 2004, and several more were designated as at-risk. Reasons quoted by Health Canada include unacceptable microbiological quality, equipment malfunction, inadequate disinfecting and unacceptable particle counts. A recent CBC survey found nearly 60 per cent of reserve drinking water systems in Alberta remain at risk, and of the province's 78 First Nations water operators, only 14 are fully certified.

But not all First Nations public works operators are complaining. Donna Wolfe of the Ermineskin First Nation located an hour's drive south of Edmonton stated that water quality in her community is excellent.

"Our treatment plant is doing a good job. I've been the operator here since 2001, and I've had support from my chief and council for everything I've done here towards improving and keeping our water supply healthy," Donna Wolfe said. She has educated herself to learn all she can about how to ensure a good water supply for her community, from how to back wash, how to clean analyzers, and numerous maintenance duties. She attended classes at Technical Services Advisory Group in Edmonton and researched further information on her own. She would like to have government assistance for drilling more water wells but has experienced frustration in trying to get funding.

"As the water table drops with recent drought conditions in the province, our community may suffer shortages, but as far as water treatment goes we are in good shape."

Darrell Auger at Wabasca/Desmarais said his community enjoys excellent water quality as well.

"We had lots of problems five years ago, but we've got it under control now," he said. As a graduate of the Water and Wastewater Program at NAIT, he was fully informed on how to ensure good water quality and he spent five years working for the Municipal District of Opportunity before being hired on by the First Nation's public works department.

"In 2002 everything was substandard, but today we've turned that around," he said. Reports were filed with Indian Affairs and persistence on Auger's part finally resulted in funding or improvements.

"I collected water samples from all over the reserve and recorded the results, which were not good." As their water is purchased from the municipality, they didn't have control over it in its original form, but with sufficient funding, they could re-chlorinate it and treat it to improve its quality, he added.

"It's still not satisfactory though, because we often have no water for a day or two and low water pressure is a constant problem with the municipal supplier." Continued pressure on the federal department finally resulted in the former Liberal government committing $6 million so a new water system could be built exclusively for the band's use.

At a press conference on March 21 to announce the new national water quality standards, Jim Prentice acknowledged that 170 of the more than 700 on-reserve water treatment centres across the country have problems.

In addressing the situation, the government has looked at the overall problem and come up with a new way to track the data and monitor progress.

"We've introduced a ranking system. Initially we've focused on the communities where there's a boil water advisory. And then we overlay other factors on top of it, five specific factors of risk: the water source, the extent of operations and maintenance, the quality of the reporting, the quality of the operators that are in the place, the age of the system, those types of things. So when you overlay all those factors on top of each other and look at it scientifically, we say that there are 21 communities living with risk and we've made a priority of dealing with those," he said.

But he knows those 21 communities are just the start.

"We understand that the list is much longer than that. We know there are 170 other such communities. We are dealing with those as well. But we wanted to focus firstly on the systems where we know there are people living at risk."

Minister Prentice has stated that it's not cash that's needed but propertraining to ensure all operators are certified. Funding promised earlier by the defeated Liberal government is not being recognized but many First Nations communities cannot afford to spend money on repairs and improvements to their water systems so the new minister's approach is troubling many.

Faithful says there needs to be long-term planning.

"Our population is increasing by 10 to 14 per cent per year, so a few years down the road our water treatment system is going to be inadequate, and we'll be looking at an expansion," he said. "The way to get money out of the government is to know the right people in the administration end of the department that you are dealing with. We'll have to start all over again with the new personnel since the Conservative government was elected."