Water quality a common problem

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While all eyes are on Kashechewan right now, the situation on the First Nation is far from unique.

The 2005 report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, released in September, indicates that while improving drinking water safety in First Nation communities has been a federal priority for the past two years, more needs to be done to ensure residents of these communities have the same access to safe drinking water as Canadians living off reserve.

According to the report, the federal government made improving water quality a priority after data gathered in 1995 showed problems with the water systems serving one in four First Nations communities in Canada.

An assessment carried out by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) in 2001 showed problems with the water systems on 75 per cent of the First Nation surveyed. The department sunk $1.9 billion into improving water and wastewater systems on reserves between 1995 and 2003, and in 2003 committed an additional $600 million.

"Despite the hundreds of millions in federal funds invested, a significant proportion of drinking water systems in First Nations communities continue to deliver drinking water whose quality or safety is at risk," the report states. "Although access to drinking water has improved, the design, construction, operation and maintenance of many water systems is still deficient."

Assembly of First Nation (AFN) National Chief Phil Fontaine released a statement on Oct. 19 in response to the Kashechewan crisis, calling for the federal government to take immediate action to help the community and to work with the AFN to develop a plan to tackle similar problems in communities across the country.

According to the AFN release, more than 100 First Nation communities are currently under boil water advisories, and more than half of those communities are in Ontario.

"The situation is echoed across the country and it's a ticking time bomb," Fontaine said. "Any community under a boil water advisory could at any time find themselves in a situation like the one in Kashechewan. It is absolutely appalling and completely unacceptable that the federal government allows these conditions to fester and plague a community while boasting of a federal surplus."

Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Stan Beardy also weighed in on the issue, calling for the federal government to come up with a long-term solution to water quality problems on First Nations. Almost half of NAN's 49 member communities are currently under boil water advisories due to unstable chlorine levels, high turbidity, unsafe uranium levels or E.coli contamination.

"Remote communities such as Kashechewan are defenceless to the increasing health risks caused by new, life threatening strains of infection diseases without clean water. How are community members supposed to protect themselves from disease through proper hygiene when the water they use to bathe with is putting them at further risk for other serious illnesses," Beardy said in a statement released Oct. 21.

"Flying bottled water into communities is not a solution, it is an attempt to mask the problem," he said, calling for the establishment of standards for on-reserve water quality equal to provincial standards and adequate training for the people operating treatment plants on First Nation communities.