Too few Nunavik municipalities regularly test their water: KRG
Tasiujaq, Ivujivik and Umiujaq are under boil water advisories after latest round of sampling, published Thursday
Kativik Regional Government wants Nunavik municipalities to be more vigilant about testing their water. (File photo by Cedric Gallant)
Kativik Regional Government’s public works director sounded an alarm this week over the lack of routine water testing being done in Nunavik’s communities.
The regional government mandates weekly physical and chemical tests of the water, and that results be reported to the municipal public works department.
In the first five weeks of 2024, KRG received 79 per cent of these results, said director Hossein Shafeghati.
This number is “lower than we would like it to be,” he told KRG council on Wednesday.
As well, the Government of Quebec requires quarterly physical and chemical municipal water tests. The last round was in January, said Shafeghati, and only two of 14 communities have turned in samples.
“The most important part of what our department does is keeping an eye on the quality of drinking water,” he said.
According to Environment Quebec’s website, physical and chemical analyses are done to check soil characteristics that affect the water supply. Arsenic, manganese, chlorides and barium are among the contents the tests watch for.
Each community has a water plant operator who takes care of testing the water each week. Allowing that some some of them were on holiday at the beginning of January, Shafeghati urged municipalities to ensure a back-up operator can take over.
“Apart from the mayor, the most important job is the water plant operator,” he said, adding the department can provide maintenance assistance but “cannot go and do sampling and testing for every village.”
Shafeghati pointed out that the problems are especially persistent in Kangiqsujuaq, Ivujivik, Akulivik and Umiujaq.
Tasiujaq, Ivujivik and Umiujaq were under boil water advisories after the latest round of sampling, published Thursday.
“We need to monitor the quality of the raw water and the quality of the product water to every detail,” he said.
“Because of climate change, and all sorts of things happening in the environment, if the characteristics of the raw water changes we will have to change the design process accordingly.”
Currently, there are ongoing maintenance projects happening to water plants in Kuujjuaq, Tasiujaq, Aupaluk, Kangirsuk, Quaqtaq and Ivujivik.
Concerning wastewater lagoons, a new project is in the design stage for Salluit due to sewage trucks having difficulty reaching the location on top of the hill, especially during winter.
The project’s mandate is to brainstorm ideas on how to transport the wastewater up to the lagoon.
Shafeghati said that in Inukjuak, his team suspects there is a leak in the lagoon due to the appearance of wetlands nearby that should not be there. KRG has contracted a geotechnical company to investigate.
It is standard operation to go suck water right out of a shallow creek when the water plant is having issues. More over the water tanks are never cleaned as highly suggested, nor is the water filters changed on a regular basis. People report small fish inside their tanks. When have the water truck tanks ever been cleaned or tested. Most hot water heaters dispense brown rusty water. KRG and KMHB are not respecting the minimum standards that the public health safety requires.
The housing in the northern parts of canada are undermined. The brown water that spews out of the tap is long overdue replacement of pipes. The water tanks can be cleaned by the renter or owner. Every 15 years, the pipes in apartment or house has to be replaced. For boil water advisory, you can blame dirt roads. Dirt roads causes turbidity in suitable drinking water. Run offs from municipalities creates turbidity when the waters in towns drains to lakes and ponds.
Nearly everything you said is wrong. No one needs to replace pipes every 15 years. Modern indoor plumbing is nearly maintenance free and lasts much longer than 15 years. Brownish water can be anything from benign iron content to a diminished anode in a boiler.
Even a badly contaminated system can be flushed and rinsed safely.
Dirt roads and turbidity. Lol. Turbidity is often harmless and a product of local mineral content. Most communities in Nunavik have paved roads with a crush gravel base, with an asphalt surface. Roads are often frozen over and snow covered for much of the year.
Those with water vehicles and sewer trucks those are annoying. Stomach always makes noise from those loud engines sucktion for sewage really loud sucktion vacuum too. Really annoying.
The vent ices up, with that the water is sucked out of the pipes causing the more suction. Go on the roof, clear the vent pipe of ice with a metal rod or screw driver.
Where was it again Flint in Michigan State that has for decades perhaps a problem with their water and the buck gets passed on to anyone and everyone. We are fine thanks.
I am very grateful that KRG is not responsible for small nuclear power plants to generate electricity in Nunavik.