Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Eight sea cans full of plastic bottles left over from Iqaluit’s water crisis last year will be sent for recycling to Montreal by the end of July. The water bottles were used in Nunavut’s capital last fall when fuel contamination in the municipal water supply prevented approximately 8,000 Iqalummiut from drinking tap water for two months.
Eight sea cans full of plastic water bottles are being sent from Iqaluit to Montreal for recycling at the end of July. Hundreds of thousands of bottles of water were flown into Iqaluit during the city's water crisis last fall. A fuel contamination in Iqaluit's water supply meant the city's approximately 8,000 residents were unable to drink the tap water for two months.
The City of Iqaluit has lifted the city-wide boil water advisory that had been in place since March 1. Earlier this week, the city said they put the "precautionary" advisory in place after a water line lost pressure while city workers were repairing a valve. This was the latest in a series of water issues that have affected the city over the past six months, including a city-wide boil water advisory in January that lasted for more than a week, and a do-not-consume order that lasted for more than two months in 2021 due to concerns about fuel contamination in the city's water supply.
The small city of Iqaluit is facing a water challenge again after traces of fuel were found in the Nunavut capital’s drinking water last week. A precautionary boil water advisory issued Wednesday is in place and the city has shut down its water treatment plant because a breach in the system is suspected to have caused Iqaluit residents to smell fuel in their water.
The City of Iqaluit shut down its water treatment plant Wednesday after the water was contaminated last week with fuel for the second time. The city said a breach in the system is suspected to have caused residents to smell fuel in their water, with breaches detected last week and Wednesday. The city said it is using a bypass system to pump water to residents instead and the entire territorial capital is now under a precautionary boil water advisory.
On the campaign trail ahead of Nunavut's territorial election, Iqaluit-Manirajak MLA Adam Arreak Lightstone took aim at the territorial government's response to Iqaluit's water crisis. "I'd like to ask all my fellow Iqalummiut, MLAs, candidates, to join me in supporting the creation of a special standing committee with the objective of reviewing the government's roles and responsibilities and overall response to the water crisis that we're all in," he said at an all-candidates forum at the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre on Oct. 18.
After about a week of reports in Iqaluit that the city’s water smelled of fuel, and the City of Iqaluit reassuring them it was safe to drink, further testing detected hydrocarbons and led to a two-month state of emergency. As the story developed over two months and national media outlets broadcast clips from Iqaluit, a patchwork system of supports started to materialize. The city and the Government of Nunavut flew bottled water up to the community, monopolizing a big portion of cargo space on incoming flights. Cargo employees worked overtime to offload the large shipments, while volunteers handed it out at pick-up stations and delivered it to homes.
The fuel contamination of Iqaluit’s water supply left people asking a lot of questions, not least of which was — how did it get there in the first place? Answering this question was one requirement among a longer list of must-dos before the territory’s chief public health officer, Dr. Michael Patterson, would consider telling people the city’s water was safe to drink again after diesel fuel was detected in the city’s water system in October. Patterson did lift the do-not-consume water advisory on Dec. 10, nearly two months after it was imposed on Oct. 12. The original suspect was a crack in one of two underground holding tanks at Iqaluit’s water treatment plant, where water sits in chlorine before moving into a treated reservoir, called the North Clear well.
On Oct. 12, due to concerns about fuel contamination, Iqaluit issued a do-not-consume order for its tap water that lasted nearly two months. The city of 8,000 would eventually point to an underground fuel spill as the potential cause of the contamination. After learning that the city's water was not safe to drink, residents in Iqaluit collected water from the nearby Sylvia Grinnell River. The military was dispatched to help provide treated water from the river using mobile water treatment units.
Iqalummiut will not have to pay their water bills for the month of November as city councillors voted in favour of providing a 100 per cent rebate due to the water emergency. The move will cost the City of Iqaluit approximately $1.7 million, money council hopes the Government of Nunavut will cover. The Government of Nunavut had imposed a do-not-consume water advisory from Oct. 12 to Dec. 10 due to fuel contamination in the city’s water supply.
Iqaluit city officials relied too much on an initial set of negative test results at the beginning of their investigation into the city’s water supply, says Nunavut’s former deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Anne Huang. It ended up influencing how decisions were made before the public was warned the water might not be safe, she added. Huang described herself as “the lone voice” in early October calling for caution in the interpretation of early results that indicated the city’s drinking water was what the city called “satisfactory.”
Nunavut's Department of Health lifted the do-not-consume order in Iqaluit, meaning residents there can once again drink from the city's water supply. Iqaluit's 8,000 residents have spent the last two months unable to drink the city's water from their taps due to concerns about fuel contamination. Officials originally told residents not to drink the tap water on Oct. 12, after complaints started flooding in about a smell of fuel in the water. In a news release Friday afternoon, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Michael Patterson stated that all tests done after Oct. 19 have shown the drinking water is safe to consume.
The City of Iqaluit, Canada is hiring temporary workers to help with water distribution as its water emergency enters its seventh week, according to Nunatsiaq News. The city’s water emergency began in October, when people began complaining of a fuel-like smell in their tap water. On 12 October, the city reported fuel, later confirmed to be diesel fuel, had contaminated its water treatment plant. The city and Government of Nunavut declared states of emergency later that day that are still in effect. Volunteers played a significant role in water distribution earlier during the emergency, but support has since waned.
Work continues to repair and upgrade Iqaluit's water treatment plant but the do-not-consume order remains in place for now. Earlier Monday, the government of Nunavut issued a reminder to Iqaluit residents not to use their tap water for drinking or cooking, following the discovery of fuel in the city's water system in October. The majority of the contamination was in the north tank, one of two tanks in the water plant.
On October 12, the city of Iqaluit, Nunavut declared a state of emergency following the discovery of fuel contamination in their water supply. A full month later, the city remains in a water crisis, with little indication as to when the water supply will be back in service. The Canadian Armed Forces have been enlisted for an indeterminate period of time to provide potable water to residents. This indefinite military presence in the city is disturbing – the government is forcing citizens to depend on the armed forces for drinking water, a basic necessity. As a city with a large Inuit population, the crisis in Iqaluit highlights the federal government’s continued disregard of Indigenous peoples and their health. According to Lorraine Rousseau, Public Service Alliance of Canada North Regional Executive Vice President, this represents “decades of broken promises and ongoing inequalities that Inuit and Indigenous communities face.”
It was late September when Adamee Itorcheak, a 56-year-old resident of Iqaluit - the capital of Canada's northernmost and sparsely populated territory of Nunavut - noticed something was wrong with his water. "The kitchen sink was the first indicator," said Mr Itorcheak, recalling a chemical smell coming from the water. Mr Itorcheak, an indigenous Inuk, is one of the approximately 7,700 Iqaluit residents who have been left without potable water for over a month. It took numerous complaints of suspicious odours to get officials to confirm that the city's water supplies were contaminated with fuel. Since a state of emergency was declared on October 12, Iqaluit's residents have been warned that local water supplies are unsafe to drink or cook with. The water was so contaminated that officials warned that it wouldn't be safe even after boiling.
A flowing river that turns to solid ice in October, freezing pipes and frosty arctic temperatures are all routine for Nunavummiut. But those issues were a first for a water treatment system previously used by the Canadian Armed Forces in places, including Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and the Philippines. Iqaluit has been under a state of emergency since Oct. 12 when fuel was found in the water at the city's treatment plant. Residents have not been able to drink tap water since then.
Nunavut's capital city says it expects tests on its drinking water to show undetectable levels of fuel. Iqaluit is under a state of emergency and its roughly 8,000 residents haven't been able to consume tap water since Oct. 12 because of fuel contamination. The city says in a news release that it has finished work to remove hydrocarbons from the water treatment plant. It says it plans to continue flushing its water treatment plant until Thursday, and residents will need to flush their own pipes by running taps after that.
Iqaluit residents could get a break on their water bills as they continue to deal with fuel contamination that's prevented them from being able to drink their tap water. Mayor Kenny Bell says in a social media post that he asked city staff for a "request for decision" on a water rebate ahead of this coming Tuesday's council meeting. Bell posted the resulting document on Saturday, which calls for a full rebate for the month of October for customers who receive their water via the city's pipes, as well as those who receive water from trucks.
CIBC announced today it is donating $25,000 to True North Aid to support relief efforts in Iqaluit, where a state of emergency is in effect over fuel contamination of the city's tap water. "This is a truly devasting situation for the Iqaluit community. We join our clients and team members in helping ensure the people of Iqaluit have access to safe drinking water," said Stephen Forbes, Executive Vice-President, Purpose, Brand, and Corporate Affairs, CIBC.
