Six Nations taking part in water quality study
McMaster partners with two First Nations
NICOLE O’REILLY
A MCMASTER
TEAM OF University researchers is partnering with members of two First Nations communities, including the nearby Six Nations of the Grand River, to find out what is contaminating drinking water.
The Co-creation of Indigenous Water Quality Tools project is Indigenous-led, meaning community members will help shape where, how and what contaminants the team looks for.
“It brings together scientific experts with what elders have always known,” said Dawn Martin-Hill, McMaster University associate professor of anthropology and holder of the Paul R. MacPherson Chair in Indigenous Studies.
“Indigenous knowledge is finally being recognized ... health is directly tied to environment.”
Martin-Hill’s leading the three-year project that was recently awarded $950,000 to test drinking water within two First Nations communities — Six Nations and the Lubicon Cree Nation of Little Buffalo, whose Northern Albertan traditional territory is used for oilsands extraction.
The need is startling: A recent analysis shows perhaps 72,000 people were affected by drinking water advisories in First Nations communities at the start of this year. Last year 133 boil wa-
ter advisories were issued in 90 First Nations communities across Canada, affecting more than 50,000 people.
Martin-Hill, who lives on Six Nations, said there are many in her community who believe their water is making them sick. Most do not have access to clean drinking water.
“Nobody drinks the water down there,” she said of families, particularly in the southern half of the community on well water.
It was the “great hope” of the late Confederacy Chief Harvey Longboat, a co-founder with Martin-Hill of McMaster’s Indigenous studies program, to see this day, she said.
“We tried in the 1990s to establish an environmental research team,” but funders and the community were not ready, Martin-Hill said. She used Longboat’s words throughout the grant application, “fulfilling a promise made to him.”
While most homes in Six Nations use well water or cisterns, about 500 in the community of Ohsweken have access to water from the community’s water treatment plant that officially opened in January 2014.
The plant’s water has consistently met provincial water quality standards and is regularly tested, said Michael Montour, director of Six Nations Public Works. But it’s also a big tax on the budget, operating with $500,000 deficit annually.
“Six Nations elected chief and council are continuously advocating for funds to expand the water distribution system,” Montour said, adding that they are “shovel ready” to expand to two schools and the Oneida Business Park if they got the funding. “We still need to secure funding for piping, operation and maintenance costs so that we can ensure that everyone in the community can benefit and have access to the water flowing through the water treatment plant,” said Six Nations Chief Ava Hill.
She said the McMaster study is of the “utmost importance” because it will “not only help us in our efforts to seek additional funding but it will also emphasize the importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge.”
There are monitoring wells at three sites on Six Nations where staff can do base level water quality tests, said Clynt King, environmental technician for Six Nations. However, they need way more to get an actual understanding of what is happening with surface and groundwater in the community.
A nearly 10-year-old test found almost all bored wells were contaminated with bacteria. King said one of the biggest concerns now is phosphorus run-off.
“We do lack a lot of data just on the surface and groundwater quality,” he said. “If we’re going to use irrigation or drinking or recreationally, we need to know more about quality.”
King has been long advocating for community or “citizen science,” and says that falls right in line with the work the McMaster program plans to do.
Martin-Hill said she hopes this grant is just the beginning of what could eventually become a permanent office focused on water quality and health in the communities.
The team is applying for a second round of Global Water Futures grant funding that they hope will allow them to develop their own water-testing sensor that can be manufactured within Six Nations. The hope is this sensor could be cheap and as easy to use as downloading an app on your smartphone, including in Indigenous languages and English.
Once those sensors are developed they will train youth in Six Nations how to assemble and collect water quality data and then those youth will help train the Lubicon youth. Armed with the data, Martin-Hill said they will be looking to change policies and government regulations about what effluent is allowed to be leaked into water.
“The real goal is to solve the problem and clean the water,” she said.