A Community in Crisis: National Chief Calls for Urgent Action on Unsafe Drinking Water in Kashechewan First Nation
AFN Press Release - OTTAWA, Oct. 19, 2005
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine today called for immediate action by the federal government on the water crisis in Kashechewan, a remote First Nation community in northern Ontario. There has been no action by the federal government even though the community has been under a boil water advisory since 2003.
The situation is so bad that community members are calling for an immediate evacuation.
"Kashechewan is in an emergency situation," said National Chief Fontaine. "I have already spoken with Kashechewan Chief Leo Friday and, based on that discussion, I am today contacting the federal Ministers of Indian Affairs and Health to set-up an immediate meeting so we can take action on this deplorable situation. The first step is to deal with the crisis in Kashechewan. Then we must map-out a comprehensive plan to address this issue on a national basis because this situation occurs in far too many First Nations communities in Canada."
Currently, over 100 First Nation communities must boil their drinking water. Health Canada indicates that more than half of those communities are located in rural and remote locations in Ontario. Indian and Northern Affairs identified that over one quarter of the water treatment systems in First Nations communities remain at high risk to contamination. A report by the Office of the Auditor General issued less than one month ago (September 29) concluded that the federal government's unregulated and poorly coordinated approach to First Nations water treatment poses a very real and dangerous threat to First Nations citizens.
"The situation nationally has been known for many years," stated the National Chief. "I have personally seen the effects of inadequate treatment on communities from coast to coast. I saw a similar situation when I visited Gilford Island in British Columbia".
The situation is echoed across the country and it's a ticking time bomb. 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."
The National Chief noted that a First Ministers Meeting on Aboriginal Issues is to be convened in late November, and that a comprehensive plan is required that deals with immediate priorities as well as long-term goals to address productivity and self-government.
"I have issued a 'Ten Year Challenge' to the First Ministers to work with us to close the gap in the quality of life between First Nations and other Canadians," said the National Chief. "One of the first steps is addressing these critical and urgent priorities to ensure we have healthy citizens and healthy communities. Band-aid solutions will not lead to sustainable communities. We need a stable foundation to build on so we can invest in education, spark economic opportunities and create our own capable governing institutions. This is crucial to the future of First Nations and the future of the country."
The Assembly of First Nations is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada.
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/For further information: Don Kelly, AFN Communications Director, (613) 241-6789 ext. 320 or cell (613) 292-2787; Ian McLeod, AFN Bilingual Communications Officer, (613) 241-6789 ext. 336 or cell (613) 859-4335; Nancy Pine, Communications Advisor, Office of the National Chief, (613) 241-6789 ext. 243 or cell (613) 298-6382
From the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal
Indian Affairs Minister visits reserve battling waterborne hazards
By The Canadian Press
Oct 20, 2005, 01:04
OTTAWA — Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott headed for a remote First Nation plagued for years by dirty water as the Opposition demanded answers for a third straight day.
“The minister believes that in order to really understand the situation on the ground, he’s got to see it first-hand,” said spokesman Dan Brien.
Staff scrambled Wednesday to book travel to the fly-in community about 450 kilometres north of Timmins, on James Bay. About 1,900 residents of Kashechewan First Nation have been under a Health Canada boil-water order for more than two years.
Reported illnesses blamed on polluted water include scabies, chronic diarrhea, headaches and fevers. Related deaths are more difficult to prove.
The situation descended into crisis last week when federal officials warned of high E. coli levels in tap water. The bacteria can be deadly for young children, the elderly and those already sick.
Seven people died and more than 2,000 became sick in 2000 after drinking water with high E. coli counts in Walkerton, Ont.
Kashechewan’s water treatment plant, funded 10 years ago by Indian Affairs, was designed by out-of-town consultants. It was placed downstream from an existing sewage lagoon. That means contaminants flow past the intake pipe that feeds raw water into the complex system to be treated for drinking.
Band leaders say they have never received proper training or enough funding to run the plant, which needs 24-hour maintenance. Indian Affairs spent $500,000 last year for upgrades but didn’t move the intake pipe.
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, who represents Kashechewan, says the reserve is “the unfortunate poster boy of federal indifference on First Nations.”
He has visited the tiny Cree community — the name means “flowing water” or “swift current” — several times since he was elected last year.
Angus also planned to be on the reserve Thursday with media in tow after Scott tours the water plant. It will be the minister’s first visit.
Angus says Scott should be prepared for the kind of oppressive squalor that calls to mind “a prisoner of war camp.”
The Cree community was forcibly relocated in 1957 to the notorious flood zone. Rows of overcrowded houses are surrounded by a faulty dyke system made of dirt. It has repeatedly failed, most recently last spring when 40 homes had to be evacuated because of flooding, Angus said.
“These people are kept in a box, out of sight and out of mind for the rest of Canadians. It’s a box that keeps the federal costs down because they just do the bare minimum, continually. “It’s always putting cheap Band-Aids on a septic wound.”
Indian Affairs has spent more than $250,000 since last April flying bottled water into Kashechewan. An emergency evacuation advisory was called off late Tuesday by Deputy Chief Rebecca Friday when Ottawa refused to foot the bill, she said.
© Copyright by Chronicle Journal.com
Conditions on reserve 'atrocious,' doctor says Sewer water flowing from taps leads to illness and social unrest
Source: GAM - Globe & Mail
Oct 24, 2005 4:19
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Page: A5
Section: National News
Edition: Metro
Byline: JAMES RUSK
A doctor who visited the sick on a Northern Ontario reserve last week said the remote community struggling with E. coli problems should be relocated.
"Nothing here is worth saving," Dr. Murray Trussler said in an interview from the Kashechewan reserve, where 1,700 people live on the shore of James Bay, 400 kilometres north of Timmins.
"The homes aren't worth saving. The nursing station is way outdated. We need a hospital here, not a nursing station. It needs to be run to provincial standards, not federal standards, which are totally substandard. And we need to have a proper water- treatment facility . . . and the school needs to be replaced."
Dr. Trussler, chief of staff at Weeneebayko General Hospital in Moose Factory, the base hospital for 12,000 people on the James Bay coast, is part of a delegation from the reserve flying to Toronto to meet with Premier Dalton McGuinty tomorrow to plead for help.
Last week, the plight of the reserve became an issue in Parliament, but all Ottawa has done so far is to send bottled water and officials to the reserve.
Leo Friday, the reserve's chief, said that the 26,000 litres of bottled water provided by Ottawa are not enough for the school to reopen and for people who are ill to be bathed properly.
The chief worries that the reserve's young people may resort to violence if its problems are not resolved soon.
"I don't know what is going to happen next week if nothing is functioning. They [the youth] are talking about burning 10 houses every month," Chief Friday said.
E. coli has been found in the reserve's water supply and the local school was closed as a result. "I think people are getting upset, especially the youth," Chief Friday said. "They were talking last year when the treatment plant wasn't working, they were going to blow it up." Although threats have been made in the past, nobody has followed through.
Dr. Trussler, who described living conditions on the reserve as atrocious, said "we've got drainage ditches in the community draining into the water supply." He said the ditches drain into a creek and all the refuse that collects floats downstream and is then sucked into the water-treatment plant.
The problems at the plant, whose intake is located 135 metres downstream from the release point of the community's raw sewage, are also influenced by the tides in James Bay.
"What's happening is that all the E. coli is sort of slopping down toward the water-treatment plant, then we have an incoming tide and it goes back up river again, and then we get E. coli coming in and more spilling back."
In the current episode, "because the water treatment plant wasn't working properly for at least a week, we had people with basically sewer water coming out of their taps," Dr. Trussler said.
Dr. Trussler said that because of the problems of E. coli, the level of chlorine in the water, which is routinely extremely high, had to be jacked up to "shock levels."
This has aggravated skin diseases, which are endemic at Kashechewan. "[High chlorine] just irritates and dries the skin further, so there is more itching and scratching, which just spreads things like scabies and impetigo."
He said that he had examined children who, for more than a year, have had impetigo, a bacterial skin disease that can cause the formation of pustules and a thick yellow crust on skin, commonly on the face.
He also said that he had seen cases of gastroenteritis, probably due to E. coli, but this cannot be confirmed until testing is completed.
"We ran across a lady who reportedly had hepatitis A. This is a virus. We don't normally screen for that. When we do a water sample, we look at E. coli and coliform counts, but we don't look for viruses," Dr. Trussler said.
He said that when he asked about protecting people from hepatitis A, Ontario offered to provide 100,000 doses of a vaccine against it, but the federal government turned it down, saying there was no hepatitis A problem in Northern Canada.
"This is absolute rubbish. There's 100 native communities in Canada currently under a boil-water advisory. Any time you are under a boil-water advisory, there's probability you are going to run into hepatitis A sooner or later," Dr. Trussler said.
Stories about the crisis in Kashechewan reaching the world ...
Dirty Water, Dirty Land: It's Only Indians
PEJ News, Canada - 53 minutes ago
CBC - The government of Ontario, which flew about 450 people out of the Kashechewan First Nation for medical care on Wednesday, is criticizing the federal ...
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McGuinty raps Ottawa over bad water
LaSalute.net, Italy - 1 hour ago
The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve and should take its ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
philly.com, PA - 3 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
CBS News - 4 hours ago
(AP) Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Kentucky.com, KY - 4 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
phillyBurbs.com, PA - 4 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Monterey County Herald, CA - 4 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
New York Newsday, NY - 4 hours ago
By Associated Press. TORONTO -- Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
Ocala.com, FL - 4 hours ago
Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have potentially ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Tallahassee.com, FL - 4 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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Canada Evacuates Residents of E. Coli-Stricken Indian Reserve
FOX News - 4 hours ago
TORONTO — Ontario (search) began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found ... E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
WTOP, D.C. - 5 hours ago
TORONTO (AP) - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
Times Daily, AL - 5 hours ago
Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have potentially ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
MLive.com, MI - 5 hours ago
TORONTO (AP) — Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Bradenton Herald, United States - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
The State, SC - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
Washington Post, United States - 5 hours ago
TORONTO -- Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Aberdeen American News, SD - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ... |
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Duluth News Tribune, MN - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ... |
E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
The Ledger, FL - 5 hours ago
Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have potentially ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Biloxi Sun Herald, USA - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ... |
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Pioneer Press, MN - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Seattle Post Intelligencer - 5 hours ago
TORONTO -- Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Grand Forks Herald, ND - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
|
E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
Dateline Alabama, AL - 5 hours ago
Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have potentially ...
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E. Coli Found at Ontario Reservation
Tuscaloosa News (subscription), AL - 5 hours ago
Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have potentially ...
|
E. coli found at Ontario reservation
Wilkes Barre Times-Leader, PA - 5 hours ago
TORONTO - Ontario began evacuating about 1,000 residents of a remote northern Ontario Indian reservation on Wednesday after drinking water was found to have ...
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 | McGuinty slams Ottawa over reserve's bad water
CBC Ottawa, Canada - 6 hours ago
The government of Ontario, which is flying 1,000 people out of the Kashechewan First Nation for medical care starting late Wednesday, is criticizing the ...
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PM says feds 'dealing with' Kashechewan water
LaSalute.net, Italy - 6 hours ago
Answering allegations he's been "missing in action" since a water-contamination crisis began on a northern Ontario Cree reserve two years ago, Prime Minister ...
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 | McGuinty slams Ottawa over reserve's bad water
CBC Toronto, Canada - 7 hours ago
The government of Ontario, which is flying 1,000 people out of the Kashechewan First Nation for medical care starting late Wednesday, is criticizing the ...
|
 | PM says feds 'dealing with' Kashechewan water
CTV.ca, Canada - 7 hours ago
Answering allegations he's been "missing in action" since a water-contamination crisis began on a northern Ontario Cree reserve two years ago, Prime Minister ...
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Kashechewan being evacuated
Wawatay News, Canada - 7 hours ago
Citing a medical emergency, Ontario Minister of Indian Affairs David Ramsay has stepped in on the water crisis in Kashechewan and launched an evacuation. ...
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Tainted water forces airlift from Canadian village
Herald News Daily, ND - 8 hours ago
By Scott Reycraft 1 hour, 21 minutes ago. TORONTO - Ontario will airlift about 1,000 residents out of a remote northern community ...  | McGuinty criticizes Feds on water crisis
Ottawa Citizen, Canada - 9 hours ago
TORONTO -- The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve, Premier Dalton ...
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McGuinty criticizes Feds on water crisis
National Post, Canada - 10 hours ago
TORONTO -- The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve, Premier Dalton ...
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McGuinty criticizes Feds on water crisis
Alaska Highway News, Canada - 10 hours ago
TORONTO -- The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve, Premier Dalton ...
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McGuinty raps Ottawa over bad water
Toronto Star, Canada - 11 hours ago
The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve and should take its ...
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