The government was called to account today as residents long exposed to dirty-water were urged to evacuate a remote Ontario First Nation. About 1,900 people on the Kashechewan reserve have for years battled skin infections and chronic illness blamed on poor water quality. Conditions range from scabies to gastrointestinal disorders, headaches and fevers. Deaths believed linked to contaminated water are more difficult to prove.
"It's not tolerable," said Deputy Chief Rebecca Friday, just after declaring the emergency evacuation. "It's not acceptable." Kashechewan is a fly-in community about 450 kilometres north of Timmins on the coast of James Bay. The name is Cree for ``flowing water" or "swift current."
The reserve has been under a Health Canada boil-water advisory for more than two years. An already bad situation turned into a full-blown crisis last week when federal officials warned that high levels of E. coli had been detected in the drinking water. The bacteria can be especially dangerous for children, the elderly and the already sick.
A water treatment plant funded by Indian Affairs was built 10 years ago — just downstream from an existing sewage lagoon. Contaminants flow past the intake pipe that feeds water into the plant to be treated for drinking. "It's crazy," says Nabil Batrouny, financial adviser for Kashechewan. "If they had chosen to move the intake 200 yards upstream, none of this problem would be there." Indian Affairs hired consultants to design and build the plant — some of whom must never have visited the site, Batrouny said.
Band leaders say they have never received proper training or enough funding to run a complex system that requires 24-hour maintenance. Batrouny says a more automated plant was needed but was likely nixed because of higher costs. "It's a bad idea, to say the least, to design a system that would require somebody with an engineering degree . . . to be able to operate it."
Neither Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott nor Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh were immediately available for comment today. Water specialists hired by Indian Affairs are now in the community assessing the situation. Indian Affairs has spent more than $250,000 since last April flying bottled water into Kashechewan. It also spent $500,000 last year to upgrade the plant but didn't move the intake pipe.
Spending $500,000 on upgrading a plant in the last year but no one thought to move a problematic intake pipe? Flying in bottles of water into a community to the tune of $250,000 for the last six months and water specialists are just now on the scene?
I could make a cheap shot blaming Liberal malfeasance, but frankly, I am stunned speechless by the breadth of it. The Koebel brother’s faced criminal charges for their part in the Walkerton Water Crisis. Canadians should expect no less for Kashechewan.
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