Front Burner - How Iqaluit’s water crisis is connected to climate change

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

After traces of fuel were confirmed in Iqaluit’s drinking water last week, the city has been under a state of emergency. Journalists Pauline Pemik and Jackie McKay explain what it will take to get the city’s taps flowing safely — for good.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud, filling in for Jamie Poisson. That's the sound of people getting water last week in one of Canada's capital cities. People filling buckets and jugs from the Sylvia Grinnell River

that runs through Iqaluit in Nunavut. I'm getting fresh water because we were told not to drink the tap water at home. And it does smell like diesel. I've been at the river and I've seen people using pots and pans. I've seen people use dry bags, rubberman containers, coolers, and I've also seen people who had to purchase new gas cans and then fill up the gas cans with water because there was actually no drugs to buy at the store. For days, people in Iqaluit had been posting on social media that something in the water smelled off. But late last week, their fears were confirmed. Fuel had gotten into the water

supply. The city has since been under a state of emergency as city officials race to flush the system and get clean water flowing again. But while they do, people are pointing to much bigger problems, with a major infrastructure gap between the Arctic and the rest of Canada. A gap that's made worse by climate change. To help us understand how Iqaluit's water crisis started and what we do about it, I'm joined by Jackie McKay and Pauline Pemmick. They're both journalists at CBC Nunavut. Hello, Jackie and Pauline. Good morning.

Hello. Okay, I want to start with just checking in on how you're both doing. How have each of you been sort of handling this and doing, what have you been doing for water? Pauline, let's start with you. It's scary. Even though right now our chief medical officer and other professionals in the field are saying it's not harmful to us to wash our hands with the tap water coming out of my kitchen sink. But the minute it touches my skin, I just feel like I'm washing my hands with gas in this water and I don't want to do it. And my only option is to go to a friend's house and wash up there. And then in the meantime, just save a bowl of water on the side to wash your hands in. But I've been doing my best to

pick up on the daily delivery lab handouts that they're giving through the city at different locations. I go to the river to get water. I'm doing whatever I can just to take care of me. But I'm also trying to do what I can to help others that can't go. So it's just constant, you know, checking in and helping out and making sure you don't waste anything. And the good thing about Nunavut Mute and being in this territory is that when things like this do arise, the first approach is no matter how upset we are,

no matter how pissed off we are, we got to figure this out. We're the ones that live here and we have to deal with it. Jackie, what about you? Doing what I think many other people in the city are doing. I'm picking up cases of water bottles at the pickup stations that I use to drink or brush my teeth with. And then going to the river and getting that water for cooking, for watering my plants, that sort of thing and getting by that way. The city's water trucks are being filled with river from the Sylvia Grinnell and then being treated in, if you're on trucked water, it's going to your house. You can take a reusable jug and get it there.

You go to the Sylvia Grinnell just yourself and fill it up straight from the river and take it home and boil that. Or there's pickup locations. So you can go and you can pick up a case of water bottles or a jug full of water. And for some people who don't have cars, you can't carry a whole bunch of water to your house. There's a lot of people in the community who are stepping up to help and deliver that water. And I guess we should maybe dive into giving people a context for how we got here. And I want to start, Jackie, with maybe telling people, when did people start to figure out that something was wrong with the water and how did the city react when that started? Well, it was the first few days of October posts started coming up.

Facebook and social media is really active here in a call wait lots of people are communicating that way and there was just many posts of people saying hey i was just running my taps and it smells like fuel in my kitchen or i'm trying to give my baby a bath and my bathroom smells like diesel hey the city of halloween like can you tell me if there's anything going on right now and when those posts started coming out the city of halloween like can you tell me if there's anything going on right now and when those posts started coming out the city was commenting on them uh city councillors the mayor themselves saying we're testing the water and everything looks normal it's fine it's safe to drink it's safe to drink and then it was about a week of this and more posts coming up from

different places in the city people who lived in not in uh one neighborhood it was pretty random where these posts were coming from and then the city said hey tell us if you if you're smelling this in your water we want to know the city said that that led to the investigation where they found what they think the cause is this water tank that is treated water where they opened it up and there was just heavy diesel fuel type smell where it prompted this emergency. You know, I'm also frustrated. I was out there saying that the water is fine. You know, I don't actually go out there and test it. People were coming with results saying,

you know, it's coming out clean. We've raised this with city officials about people are really frustrated. They came to you. They said, we think something's wrong and you told us it was OK. The city's response to that has been that they were testing the water, but they were testing for things like bacteria in the water, like common water tests. They weren't testing for hydrocarbons until more than a week later when they opened this tank and they they smelt the fuel smell that in the city said that they were listening to

people and that's what led them to open this tank but i don't know if that's a good enough response for a lot of people i think it's even now there's some people that may not start drinking the water ever again, even if they tell us it's safe later. I think there's a real sense that the damage is to the trust, right? The damage is to can you trust the water? And, you know, the fear doesn't necessarily leave even after the crisis cleared up and we're far away from even reaching that point. Jackie, I want to get the idea of where we are in terms of the investigation over what happened. Where are we right now? So the tank that we keep talking about where they say the contamination is, there's two tanks where the water from the reservoir goes into and then it is mixed with the treatment to make it safe for people to drink.

So the one tank they believe is contaminated, they have isolated and they have drained that and that water is now sitting in a tanker truck that is going to be remediated. The results of water quality testing show exceedingly high concentrations of various fuel components and sample collected from that tank. concentrations of various fuel components and sample collected from that tank. Workers have now gone into that tank and they were looking for what they think was a crack from shifting ground due to melting permafrost that allowed the contamination somehow to get in. We expect we may find some cracking in the tank somewhere. Just with a visual inspection, someone

going in there and looking around, they haven't seen a visible crack. They're now looking to find if there's a crack that isn't visible to just plain eyes. And they're going through tests now because they still don't know how this happened. We still don't know how

it got into the system. And that's kind of where we are for trying to figure that out. The water system itself in the city, they're flushing it. So they're running water just through out onto the street. If you go by the airport or different places in Iqaluit right now, there is fire hydrants that are just spewing out water and that's part of the flushing system. And that was supposed to be over by now, but it's actually been three days they've been doing that. I'll see you next time. angel capital organization empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some

startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. Fifty percent. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I think the question that a lot of people have is, how could the water infrastructure in one of Canada's capital cities be so fragile that something like this could happen? And last year, the Nunavut Tungavik Incorporated, the group that represents Inuit covered by the Nunavut Agreement, they released a 259-page document on the huge infrastructure gap that the territory has with the rest of the country. Pauline, I'm wondering, what does that gap look like compared with the South? When it comes to infrastructure specifically, I'll give an example of just,

you know, lack of housing. We have overcrowded housing here. I know it's been an issue across the country, recently arising more and more, but in Nunavut, we've never, ever, ever had enough houses. We've never had enough schools. We've never had enough daycares. We don't have the infrastructure for healthcare, even to go to a dentist. The list can go on. even just looking at the pictures you know i don't need to say a lot and if people get a chance to take a look at how our communities are built um yeah the priorities in anything for example like this uh port the seaport that was being built here, is beneficial to the territory.

It also benefits companies that come from the south and shipping routes. It benefits international companies as well. But we also need to be able to build that kind of infrastructure that even if it doesn't help the rest of the world, we still need it for us. And I don't know how to validate or somehow explain that our lives aren't just as important as lives over there. It's, you know, in addition to all of the problems that that infrastructure gap causes, it's not hard to see, Jackie, how that gap would mean

that people have to do things that end up being riskier for the environment. Like if you don't have a wind power electrical grid, you have to bring more diesel in from a sea lift. Jackie, you've heard from the mayor about what he thinks is at the root of this problem. It's most likely caused by climate change and the ground shifting and maybe the tank getting cracked. the root of this problem. It's most likely caused by climate change and the ground shifting and maybe the tank getting cracked. And you've reported that problems with the city's water supply have been linked to climate change for years. So can you tell me about that?

So the city has been in a water crisis for many years, and a lot of that has to do with climate change. There's kind of two folds of what's going on. First of all is changing precipitation and snowfalls. So the quantity of water we are able to get in our reservoir, we're not actually able to store enough water for everybody we need to provide for. And so we have a supplementary pumping program. we need to provide for. And so we have a supplementary pumping program. There's a river just behind our reservoir, which is like a big open lake. You can see it. It's right behind the city. So we have to fill that up every single summer to be able to have enough quantity of water to get through the winter. But we lose a lot of our water to breaking pipes. So our water

infrastructure, as like Pauline pointed out is is really old and so the ground shifts because of melting permafrost and then those pipes break and you can see sometimes in Iqaluit there'll be those breaks and there'll be water flowing down the street and the city has to go and repair it and we lose a ton of water to those leaks so the city is trying to catch up on fixing those pipes and coming up with better solutions that when the ground shifts as it is with climate change that we're not losing all of our water to to those pipe breaks and we still have to we have to fix that and we have to fix that very soon we're coming close to a crisis where we may not even have enough water to sustain our city. And that has a rolling impact. If we don't have running water going through our pipes,

our systems in our in-ground and in our homes, then what happens is when the temperature drops and the water freezes because it's not running the water expands as it freezes and it bursts the pipes and so the city is actually under um they have to find a new water source um in the next couple of years and the the federal government will will need to step in and pay for that we We're actually looking at the Sylvia Grinnell River that we're currently using to get all our fresh water as a possibility for our new water supply. Because we have to expand our reservoir. And we also just have to replace all the water infrastructure in our city. So we need new houses. But we also need to be able to have enough water for those houses and get water there in a way that we're not losing it to all these breaks.

And Pauline, that's not even the only way that climate change is hitting people really hard in the north. Can you tell us a little bit more about how these changes, changes like the shifting permafrost or the changing water levels, end up impacting people who live in Nunavut? permafrost or the changing water levels end up impacting people who live in Nunavut? It's really hard to explain in a short format, but as winter comes, the river will freeze up. The sea ice will eventually freeze up, but that's not safe anymore either. We can't travel over the ice to reach certain lakes. We could have to go and drill holes on our own like we could as Inuit or Nunavut. Jackie has a snowmobile.

She could go with her friends and go get water. But because of climate change, it's dangerous for us to travel on the sea ice and we could easily fall through. We rely so much on the Nuna, the berries we eat, the water we drink, the meat we bring home, the fish. It's a whole cycle. And if one is ruined or not protected and maintained, then everything, it's a whole domino effect.

There's a real sense that we are getting all those warnings and we are just sort of beginning to understand that nearly every story we cover ends up being at the core of it a climate story. Jackie, you mentioned earlier that, you know, climate change is leading to less precipitation. So it's not just infrastructure problems, it's just literally less clean water that's available. So it's not just infrastructure problems, it's just literally less clean water that's available. So I want to talk a little bit about how the response to this is also connected to climate change. Because I understand that some people are worried that responding to this particular water crisis is actually going to end up creating more environmental problems in Iqaluit. Can you tell us about that vicious cycle, Jackie? So I think the big thing everybody's thinking about as their garbage cans fill up with water bottles is we can't recycle in Nunavut.

It's just not possible. We don't have the facilities to do it. So we're flying in thousands of water bottles every single day and we have to do that. So what are we going to do with all of those water bottles right now the Arctic Co-op has volunteered for sea cans and they're looking at ways for us to be able to send those bottles down south on a ship next summer to be able to be recycled they're looking at setting up bins around the city so we can drop off our water bottles there but sending those water bottles south somehow for hopefully somebody to step up and deal with and take to a recycling center is our only way to deal with them or else they're going to end up in ackyloit's landfill you could probably build a ship with the water bottles that we're gonna go through

just a giant raft we will send them all down. It'll float down. We use recycle, right? Honestly, I can't even picture how many water bottles are in town right now. I want to shift gears to talk about federal politicians for a moment, Pauline. I am sincerely committed to this renewed relationship, and we will honour our promises. We can't have a country that is fair if everyone doesn't have access to clean drinking water,

and that's a problem we need to fix. This water crisis is, you know, it's not the only one in Nunavut. The territory is often dealing with boil water advisories. And for someone like me in Toronto, I think this crisis might be confusing, particularly when I hear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk about how he's lifted 118 long-term drinking advisories in Indigenous communities. Do you think there's a gap between what federal politicians

are saying and what they're doing? We need to educate Canadians so that they know the difference. I don't know how we're going to do that. And I guess by talking about it here with Jackie and I and yourself is a baby step. But for anyone to say that, whether, you know, leaders or politicians, for them to say that they resolved this many water issues, but not to acknowledge that there is a severe crisis happening here in Iqaluit is not right. It should be acknowledged. The difference should be explained. The thing for me is we need to identify for the North what works for the North versus what might be working for Indigenous people in the South, because the South is

built differently, and it's a different culture. And when it comes to Arctic infrastructure and development here and issues and crisis here, it's very different, very, very different from how it would be dealt with in the South, whether we're Indigenous or not. I'd say it's worth noting that Indigenous Services Minister Mark Miller has said that ISC, that's Indigenous Services Canada, is offering Nunavut its full support in restoring clean, safe, and reliable drinking water. And Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said the federal government is working with the city to get safe drinking water back. Jackie, what needs to happen at a systemic level for this water supply to be fixed in a more permanent way, both in Iqaluit and also elsewhere in the territory? We need the federal government to step up and provide the money and the help to create new

infrastructure for water treatment in the territory. There's many communities in Nunavut that need new water treatment plants besides Iqaluit. But once the situation in Iqaluit is dealt with and the contamination is out of the water and we can drink the tap water again, every single year we're still going to be dangerously close to another water emergency for not having enough potable water. We are a capital city in Canada that has been in a water emergency for several years. We need all of our water infrastructure essentially rebuilt so it can sustain our growing population and that we have reliable sources of water. We need a bigger reservoir and we need pipes that don't break. And that's going to take time and it's going to take money. But if we are going to be a capital city in Canada, we should be able to rely on the water coming out of our taps. Jackie, Pauline, thank you so much for taking the time to give us an overview of what's going on in Iqaluit. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you for taking the time.

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