Nunavik: KRG fall roundup

Having a swimming pool in an Arctic climate isn’t always easy. Quaqtaq’s $1.5 million heated swimming pool, seen here in 2008, is now closed due to mold. (FILE PHOTO)

Vandals recently damaged Kuujjuaq’s $400,000 pool, which opened in 2007. (FILE PHOTO)

Salluit firefighters stand next to their new fire truck. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KATIVIK REGIONAL GOVERNMENT)

The Kativik Regional Government, created in 1978 by the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, delivers public services to the nearly 12,000 residents of Nunavik’s 14 communities. At its quarterly meeting, Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, regional councillors discussed a variety of issues, including telecommunications, Plan Nord, employment, social issues, transportation and policing.

New fire trucks, halls arrive in Nunavik

New fire trucks and have arrived in many Nunavik communities as the region’s new $10-million fire safety cover plan is implemented, the Kativik Regional Government’s civil security co-ordinator Craig Lingard told councillors at last week’s meeting of the KRG in Kuujuaq.

New fire trucks, worth a total of $1.3 million, arrived in Kuujjuaraapik, Inukjuak, Puvirnituq. Kangiqsualujjuaq and Salluit, where members of the local fire departments also received training on how to use the fire pump.

And new fire halls have also gone up in Puvirnituq, Inukjuak and Kangiqsualujjuaq.

The plan also aims to train roughly 15 firefighters per Nunavik community over the next two years, or more than 200 across the region.

The first courses in the Fire Fighting 1 training program wrapped up at the end of November.

Firefighters who complete the training over the next two and a half years will receive certification recognized by the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress.

In 2012, instructors plan to continue travelling throughout the region, giving training in every community roughly one weekend per month.

In Quebec’s smaller municipalities, with fewer than 25,000 residents, firefighters are supposed to complete this 275-hour training program to obtain their Firefighter I status.

Everyone wants a pool

With climate change pushing up summer temperatures in Nunavik, many communities are clamoring for swimming pools where residents can cool off and have fun.

Even Aupaluk, Nunavik’s smallest community wants a swimming pool of its own— and, to that end, the Kativik Regional Government resolved to set aside $647,700 from its Pivaliutiit community infrastructure program.

At last week’s meeting of the KRG, many regional councillors also said their communities want swimming pools.

In Akulivik, there have been three drownings in that community’s river in recent years — one this past summer, the councillor noted. And a swimming pool could help people more safely swim, he suggested.

But Fred Gagné, the director of the Kativik Regional Government’s municipal works department, said his department has no more money left to put towards more swimming pool construction.

The money for pools comes, at least in part, from a five-year, $27.5-million Quebec program that will end in 2012. That program has seen $1 million go to each community to cover about 80 per cent of a project’s costs.

Several Nunavik communities have constructed or are building new swimming pools, such as Salluit’s new $10-miillon swimming pool complex, also paid for with money from the Raglan nickel mine profit-sharing and crime prevention money.

But in some communities the swimming pools’ operations continue to cause headaches.

In Quaqtaq the $1.5 million heated, indoor swimming pool proved hard to staff with lifeguards and now remains closed due to mold in the building.

In Kuujuaq, the $400,000 swimming pool which opened in 2007, was recently vandalized by youth who, among other things, rubbed feces around the facility.

Nunavik mounts on-the-job safety campaign

Some municipal sewage truck workers in Nunavik aren’t aware of the risks they can encounter due to their job, which involves picking up sewage from houses and then dumping the waste in sewage lagoons.

By not washing their hands after going to the bathroom, touching their hands to their face at work, eating drinking or even smoking in the workplace, not showering after work or washing their clothes separately from the rest of the family, they can fall sick, the occupational health team at the Nunavik regional board of health and social services told counsellors at last week’s Kativik Regional Government council meeting in Kuujjuaq.

They can catch nasty diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, hepatitis A and an illness known as “sewer workers syndrome,” which includes chills, fever, diarrhea and eye infections.

They should use masks, face protectors, glasses, gloves, boots and waterproof coveralls, said the public health representatives who spoke Nov. 30 to councillors about occupational or on-the-job health.

Some at the meeting told stories of not wanting to shake hands with sewage truck workers when they know these workers haven’t washed up.

Nunavik’s occupational health team has also visited communities to look at garages, water and sewage services, carpentry workshops, water treatment stations and sewage dumping areas, fire stations and arenas, and suggest preventative measures like a laundry room for sewage truck workers and protective equipment.

For other workers such as those at garages, they’ve recommended antiglare screens or eye baths to use if contaminants splash into a worker’s eyes.

KRG sets its sights on better water testing results

Water plant operators in some Nunavik communities aren’t doing their job.

That was the message from Fred Gagné, the director of the Kativik Regional Government’s municipal works department, to the KRG councillors at their meeting last week in Kuujjuaq.

On average, from January to October 2011, the KRG received water sampling reports from the 14 communities in Nunavik only 72 per cent of the time.

That’s down from 83 per cent in 2010.

“The results are not acceptable,” Gagné said.

Some communities like Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kuujjuaq, Quaqtaq, Kangiqsujuaq, Salluit, Puvirnituq and Kuujjuaraapik, sent in their results from 88 to 100 per cent of the time.

But in Inukjuak, Tasiujaq, Akulivik, and Ivujivik results were sent in rarely: from 45 per cent of the time in Inukjuak down to only 19 per cent of the time in Ivujivik.

As a result, residents often faced boil water advisories.

That’s because, even if the tests are done, the KRG must issue a boil water advisory when water operators don’t send in the results.

Nunavik relies on Colilert water sampling method, which tests for harmful bacteria on site within 24 hours and is currently used in many aboriginal communities in Canada.

Have boats, will rescue

Nunavik continues to boost the training of its marine search and rescue teams, the Kativik Regional Government’s civil security co-ordinator Craig Lingard told councillors at last week’s meeting of the KRG in Kuujuaq.

Since 2004 every community in Nunavik has had access to specially-equipped orange and grey boats, worth $250,000 each, for marine search and rescue.

This summer members of the “Nunavik Municipalities Fast Rescue Craft” and rescue boat team practiced outside Kuujuaq on a simulated rescue mission in Ungava Bay, which included rescue boats from Tasiujaq, Kangiqsualujjuaq and Kuujjuaq and support from a Hercules.

They also practiced rescue techniques near Kangiqsujuaq in August, when they perfected the transfer of a stretcher from one moving boat to another.

Now the KRG wants to build a regional coast guard-like team to deal with emergencies along Nunavik’s 2500-kilometre coastline, Lingard said.

A Canadian Air Search and Rescue Association unit in Kuujjuaq already has 13 qualified spotters.

The KRG, which participates in the national Arctic SAR roundtable, wants to develop local search-and-rescue capacity to meet federal and provincial standards and promote marine safety, Lingard said.

But, at the meeting Lingard and other KRG officials called for more prudent use of the SAR boats. They’re supposed to be used only if someone’s “life is in danger,” but occasionally they’ve been used for non-emergencies, such as delivering gas or cigarettes.

Here marine search and rescue teams practice transferring a stretcher from one moving boat to another. The exercise took place this past August in Kangiqsujuaq. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KATIVIK REGIONAL GOVERNMENT)