Collaboration to help solve Indigenous water crisis

There are dozens of boil water advisories in place across the country for reserves. Could a research team’s innovative approach help solve this problem?
Chlorine sensors are easy to produce, and with the addition of a microprocessor, it allows people to test their own water for chemical elements—a good indicator of whether the water has been treated and is safe to drink.

Drinking water on First Nations reserves has been an issue for decades. The federal government committed $1.8 billion in the 2016 budget to end long-standing boil water warnings – there are currently 70 of them across the country.

But drinking water issues vary depending on the reserve. Rubicon Lake, for example, is concerned about the impact of nearby oil sands development. The problem for the Group of Six is not water treatment, but water delivery. The reserve built a $41 million water treatment plant in 2014 but has no funds to lay pipes from the plant to local residents. Instead, it allows people to draw water from the facility for free.

As Martin-Hill and her team began engaging with the community, they encountered increasing levels of what she calls “water anxiety.” Many people in both reserves have never had clean drinking water; young people, especially, fear they will never do so.

“There’s a sense of hopelessness that we didn’t see 15 years ago,” Martin-Hill said. “People don’t understand Aboriginal people – your land is you. There’s a saying: ‘We are the water; the water is us. We are the land; the land is us.