‘Nobody really trained us’
INVESTIGATION: Reserve warned for years about tainted water And nobody, from band officials to the federal government, took charge of fixing the problems on the remote reserve
Kashechewan leaders were warned for years that their water treatment was unsafe — systems were malfunctioning, safeguards were busted and nearby beaver dams diverted sewage into the water supply. Nobody — from band officials to the federal government — took charge of fixing the problem. Years ago, when an alarm system designed to warn of bad water made annoying sounds, plant operators turned it off.
Other simple, problem- solving suggestions from outside water experts were ignored. A Star investigation reveals a litany of problems with Kashechewan’s 10- year- old, $ 3.6 million water treatment facility, documented in reports to the band from government agencies and private engineering firms. The situation mirrors problems in native water plants across Ontario. Despite millions of dollars in annual government funding, thousands of First Nations people live with bad water.
Last month, the spread of E. coli infected water through more than 200 homes in isolated Kashechewan, 400 kilometres north of Timmins, prompted the community to
pack its bags. Long- time plant operators Alfred Wesley and Isaiah Wynne said they could not keep the water safe. “Nobody really trained us,” Wesley said last week. When he and Wynne went from “ dumping chlorine” into water at the reserve’s old treatment plant to manoeuvring a new, more sophisticated plant in 1996, they had only six weeks to learn the system. An engineer who helped build the facility said it was working perfectly when his company pulled out. But band administrators say that’s when the battle — against everything from broken- down machinery to poor water pressure — began.
Built at the west end of the reserve, the small plant draws its water from the Red Willow Creek, which is sometimes contaminated with overflow from a nearby sewage lagoon, handling the town’s waste water. The lagoon is not designed to flow into that creek, but beaver dams clogging the sewage discharge path cause it to spill over into the drinking supply. A 2002 report by Timminsbased engineering firm B.H. Martin Consultants Ltd. told band leaders they could protect the safety of the water by annually following simple, step- bystep instructions. Included was a three- year maintenance plan that, if it had been followed, would have helped prevent several occurrences of drinking water contamination. However, band leaders failed to follow the instructions, including a critical one: Get rid of area beavers and destroy new dams. An expert source, who asked not to be named, says the band’s failure to do so played an integral role in the recent spread of E. coli. The other key factor hinges on a $ 30, broken chlorine injector part. Had it been working, the dirty water would have been disinfected. Had the operators asked to have the broken alarm system repaired, they might have known the injector was broken, and been able to prevent the E. coli spread.
“ It used to make a lot of noise, going off all the time,” chief water operator Wesley said, explaining that the alarm never seemed to work properly. “ We just shut it off.”
Another damning report about the Kashechewan facility was written in 2003 for the Ontario Clean Water Agency. It slammed plant conditions, noting they need to “ better reflect industry standards.” The report also called the operators’ maintenance habits and data logging “ inadequate to effectively operate the Kashechewan First Nation water treatment plant and achieve a high level of treated water quality.” . . . . .
Wesley, 47, was on a moose hunt deep in the bush when the news crackled over radio: Health Canada officials had confirmed the presence of E. coli in the drinking water on his reserve, a remote, run- down community on the shores of James Bay that can only be reached by plane for much of the year. The date was Oct. 14, two days after Wynne, Wesley’s partner, first discovered bacteria in the reserve’s water during a routine, weekly sample test. Because of outdated testing equipment used at the water plant, it had taken two days to confirm E. coli. Test samples had to be sent by plane to a southern government lab. Two days later, the boil water advisory was posted by Health Canada. He didn’t have his own canoe on the trip, but even if he could have gone back earlier, he said, he likely wouldn’t have known what to do. Neither did Wynne.
In spite of their experience — Wesley has 20 years mixing chemicals at the plant and Wynne about nine — both have had less than one full year of professional schooling. They get one or two weeks of textbook training per year with travelling instructors from the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corp. depending on what the band can afford. But band executives are supportive of both men. “ I call those guys Einstein,” band executive Archie Wesley said of his operators. “ Without training, without tools, without a proper water treatment plant, they’ve managed not to kill anybody in this community.” He would like to improve plant and working conditions, but Wesley says he’s hamstrung by high costs even though the federal government agreed in 2004 to spend $ 800,000 on plant upgrades. The funding was a response to the 2003 Ontario Clean Water Agency report which found numerous deficiencies in plant operations.
Federal operation and maintenance funding for the facility for 2005- 2006 totals $ 113,881. But extra must be set aside for training funds.
“ It’s so expensive,” Archie Wesley said, adding that he might have to pay both operators more than their approximate $30,000 salaries if they had more education.
Last year, the men paid their own certification exam fees, but both failed the test. They’re currently classified as operatorsintraining. They could not legally run their water plant if it were under provincial jurisdiction, where post-Walkerton rules are strict. But water treatment plants on First Nations reserves are not bound by the same standards as municipal facilities. Poor training and lack of certification is typical at other First Nations communities, the Star found. So is poor- quality equipment.
Earlier this year at Kashechewan, Wesley and Wynne were unable to stop sewage from backing up into the plant during a flood because they could not find the tools they needed. The April incident forced the temporary evacuation of about 200 people. Now, more of the houses are empty. On their way out of town last month, evacuees scrawled messages on to their walls as if they weren’t coming back. “ Thank you . . . for fighting for our right to live,” reads one. . . . . . The 1996 building of the Kashechewan water plant was a slow process. In August 1997, the plant had “ many deficiencies,” according to a summary report prepared for the department of Indian and northern affairs. It took almost two years for those concerns to be rectified. John Cannard, a 10- year employee of the Ottawa- based engineering firm J. L. Richards and Associates, managed the building project. In a telephone interview yesterday, Cannard said he could not recall any major problems during the sign-off process.
“ Someone with adequate training would have no problem operating that plant,” he said, adding, “ it’s not unusual for any mechanical system to have a little bit of a hiccup.” But operators Wesley and Wynne say they’ve had trouble since the beginning. Their biggest handicap was that the plant’s automation system, which should allow operators to run the plant on computers in a sort of autopilot mode instead of having to manually direct water flow with tools and levers, never worked. When water expert Chris LeBlanc arrived on the scene last month, the automation was broken. Without it, Wesley and Wynne had to run the plant literally by hand, a difficult task complicated by the reserve’s overflowing sewage lagoons. Problems often arose that the pair did not know how to diagnose or fix. Band executive Archie Wesley said he has repeatedly complained to the Indian affairs department about them.
It’s unclear who is responsible for fixing all of these problems. When the report by the B. H. Martin engineers, who had been hired by the band in 2002, suggested the destruction of beaver dams that forced wastewater back into Red Willow Creek, above the drinking water intake pipe, five dams were indeed broken up. But the process has never been repeated. Both Wynne and Wesley said last week that they had never seen the engineering report. But Wesley said he knew about the beavers. He also knew that if the plant’s disinfection system and alarm systems were working, the beavers wouldn’t have been a problem. But neither he nor Wynne knew water wasn’t being disinfected properly at the plant last month. Although Wesley had never asked engineers to repair the alarm system, the fact that it’s been out of use for five years means there’s no telling how often or for what periods of time water went untreated. Once Health Canada confirmed the presence of E. coli and summoned LeBlanc, it took him mere hours to see that a chlorine injector needed for disinfection was air- locked — in other words, stuck. A day later, LeBlanc was drinking water from the plant tap. . . . . .
It had been exactly three weeks since the E. coli was announced, and operators Wesley and Wynne had been working hard to avoid anyone but each other.
“ Community members blame them,” band administrator Archie Wesley said. “ But they are incredible people.” The E. coli announcement was a tipping point for many residents sickened by their lifestyle on the isolated reserve.
Billy Wesley — Archie Wesley’s brother, no relation to operator Wesley — said the boredom and joblessness in the community is staggering; no new jobs have been created for years. But in that time, Wesley and Wynne’s employment has held steady. Now, they worry.
“ I don’t think they’ll trust us anymore,” Wesley said.