Regulator needs to monitor reserve’s water, chief says

MPP wants province to oversee plants E. coli found in water last month

Trained Ontario experts must take over regulation of native water treatment facilities to ensure drinking water safety on reserves, native leaders and political critics say.

“ You need to have checks and balances to make sure these kinds of things don’t happen,” said Gilles Bisson, the New Democrat MPP for TimminsJames Bay, which includes Kashechewan First Nation, the site of the province’s most recent tainted water scare. Kashechewan Chief Leo Friday said he agrees. “ I believe in health and I believe in safety. I need to have in place some kind of regulation that we should monitor our water,” he said. The comments came on the heels of a TorontoStarinvestigation into the cause of the spread of E. coli through the remote reserve’s water system last month. The incident, which prompted a community- wide evacuation from the reserve on James Bay’s south shore, occurred even though band leaders and government officials were warned for years that systems were malfunctioning and water treatment was unsafe, the Star found. “The band was part of the problem, sure,” said MPP Bisson. “But it’s not as if they haven’t been asking for help.”

Currently, reserve treatment plants are subject to lax federal guidelines that are not legally binding, while municipal plants must comply with strict, postWalkerton rules set by the province. A strain of E. coli in Walkerton’s water in May 2000 led to seven deaths and illness for 2,300 other people in southwestern Ontario. When it come to reserves, provincial authorities “ don’t get involved unless asked,” said Ontario Environment Ministry spokesman John Steele. In the Kashechewan case, the Clean Water Agency wasn’t asked to look at its water treatment plant until after Health Canada confirmed the presence of E. coli.

Bisson argues that if the province had been in control of water for Kashechewan, problems would have been fixed. He notes Ottawa has jurisdiction over native affairs but “ does not have the capacity” to oversee water operations on reserves.

In fact, Friday began begging federal officials to turn their attention to his problem- plagued reserve months ago. In August, he met Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott to outline his concerns. They included poor water treatment plant conditions, overflowing sewage lagoons, lack of training for his water operators and shortages of operating and maintenance funds.

“ I think if they had of listened to us . . . everything would have been okay,” Friday said.

Scott’s spokesman Campbell Morrison said the minister’s response to the meeting was to set up a Kashechewan Task Force to “ look at options on how to proceed.”

“Everybody went home and started thinking about solutions,” Morrison said, though the task force was working “ in a sort of non- crisis mode.” New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins- James Bay), who represents Kashechewan, said, “ We couldn’t seem to get ( fast federal) action. These problems had been developing for years.”