[Newsbot]

Title: Iqaluit residents asked to report fuel odour in drinking water
Category: Environmental
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2021-10-12 07:39:15
Canadian

[DrCaleb]

$1:

Don't drink the tap water, Iqaluit mayor tells residents


City staff found evidence of fuel contamination in the city's water supply


A state of emergency has been declared in Iqaluit after city staff found evidence of fuel contamination in the city's treated water supply. The water is unsafe to drink, even if filtered or boiled, according to the municipality.

In an interview with Nunatsiaq News Tuesday, Mayor Kenny Bell said every part of town was affected, whether water is delivered by pipes or by trucks.

"It's everything. Any treated water," he told the paper.

The city has more than 7,000 residents, all of whom will now need access to alternative sources of water.

Tap water can still be used for laundry, cleaning and showers, the Nunavut health department said in a news release, but it should not be used for bathing by pregnant women, or newborns and infants, and it should not be used to mix infant formula.

"We suspect there is some type of petroleum product that has entered the water system," chief administrative officer Amy Elgersma told council Tuesday evening.

She said staff had located "concentrated odours" in the water treatment plant. It's sent samples for testing and expects results in five business days.

The advisory not to drink the water was issued because this is a situation where boiling the water will not make it safe, Elgersma said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iq ... -1.6208466

[DrCaleb]

Iqaliut has a single reservoir for city water. If it's contaminated, the entire reservior is useless. And this time of year, the river should be freezing. No one wants there to be a water crisis right before winter.

[Zipperfish]

Yeah, shitty timing. Pure speculation, but the diesel storage systems at a lot of these remote communities are often pretty decrepit. ON top of the water issue, they could be looking at a massive amount of contaminated soil, if you have an old bulk storage system that's been leaking for a long time.

[DrCaleb]

Yea, if there were pumps uphill from the reservior, they are truly frelled.

[llama66]

Lies, there is nothing wrong with the water. The Government just wants to control us.

[JaredMilne]

I'm glad Ottawa is finally making progress on lifting drinking water advisories, and hopefully they'll get to this one soon. Iqaluit is the damn capital of Nunavut-it shouldn't have to deal with this. The decrepit systems Zipperfish mentions are probably one of the biggest problems here.

What I'm wondering, though, is how and when there'll be long-term capacity to not only lift advisories but keep them lifted. Non-Native water utilities like Edmonton's EPCOR have a lot of institutional knowledge and experience in things like keeping their distribution systems clean, repairing broken infrastructure (e.g. water main breaks) and ensuring water's available almost any time you need it.

How much of that type of knowledge and experience exists in reserve communities? And I'm not blaming the Natives for this at all-it's yet another shitty part of the legacy of residential schools, underfunding and federal bureaucratic micromanagement. It's one reason I agree with Native advocates who say that Native nations should have their own province-like land bases and constitutional power over things like education and infrastructure. They'd obviously put a lot of effort into building that capacity to manage water services themselves, and probably handle it more efficiently.

[raydan]

Supplements!

[CDN_PATRIOT]

$700 million dollars for an election that no one wanted, but no money for the capital of Nunavut to have clean drinking water that everyone needs.

What a fucked up time we live in.

-J.

[DrCaleb]

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

$700 million dollars for an election that no one wanted,

You really are a parrot of conservative talking points. That assumes the election costs a different amount if it were held at a different time. It wouldn't. It would still be held, and still cost roughly the same amount, whenever it happened.

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

but no money for the capital of Nunavut to have clean drinking water that everyone needs.

What a fucked up time we live in.

-J.

Again, not the problem. Currently they are looking for cracks in the holding tanks that may be a result of the soil sliding downhill due to climate change. The contamination is only in one holding tank.

Nunavut had clean drinking water, but they are also experiencing many problems due to the changing climate. But you just knee jerk and rely on TDS, rather than blame the actual problem that you don't have the time to address as a real problem.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

Except that Trudeau was the only party leader that pushed for an election, and the money could have been better spent to fix the water supply in other First Nations communities that he claims to support whenever he opens his idiotic mouth.

-J.

[housewife]

Doc the argument point of the election costs isn’t really about the cost but the priority. Yes elections cost money no matter when they happen. But to put ahead of all the other things that could have been spent on is the problem. Yes they are in charge but the priority list is skewed. To me it reads like buying electronics for a kid that needs food. I’m sure not everyone sees it that way but I do.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

housewife housewife:

Doc the argument point of the election costs isn’t really about the cost but the priority. Yes elections cost money no matter when they happen. But to put ahead of all the other things that could have been spent on is the problem. Yes they are in charge but the priority list is skewed. To me it reads like buying electronics for a kid that needs food. I’m sure not everyone sees it that way but I do.

That is the point I was trying to make (in a roundabout way), but you nailed it much better than I could.

When the so-called 'leader' of our country focuses more on vanity projects or ego-driven elections more than the plight of his own people, it shows a huge disconnect between the politicians and the people who they are supposed to work for - namely, US.



-J.

[Strutz]

housewife housewife:

Doc the argument point of the election costs isn’t really about the cost but the priority. Yes elections cost money no matter when they happen. But to put ahead of all the other things that could have been spent on is the problem. Yes they are in charge but the priority list is skewed. To me it reads like buying electronics for a kid that needs food. I’m sure not everyone sees it that way but I do.

Good analogy and I get your point. I think I tried to make that point previously as well.

Hopefully they can determine how the water got contaminated to begin with and then take the necessary steps to ensure future safety.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

Strutz Strutz:

Hopefully they can determine how the water got contaminated to begin with and then take the necessary steps to ensure future safety.

And also make sure that it never happens again, especially in this day and age.

-J.