‘I don’t trust that water plant’: Hundreds evacuated from First Nation in northern Ontario so far

The roads are quiet in Kashechewan First Nation.

Some kids are still playing hockey outside on the snow-filled streets, but three weeks ago that would have been common.

About half of the 2,300 people living in the remote fly-in community in northern Ontario have already left for cities to the south — including Timmins, Ontario, Kingston and Niagara Falls — as part of evacuation efforts that began earlier this month.

It’s all due to concerns over an aging and damaged water-treatment plant in the Cree First Nation.

On January 4, Chief Jose Wesley declared a state of emergency. People were told not to drink the water and the plant effectively shut off the taps providing water to their homes.

Technicians from Northern Waterworks were brought in to repair the damage and worked to get the water back on. But they are awaiting test results from a laboratory in North Bay for health officials to determine whether the water is safe to drink.

Adrian Sackeni still doesn’t trust the local water supply.

He goes to the nearby Albany River, which flows into James Bay, to collect large chunks of ice.

Sakeny takes that snow to his home every day on a snowmobile to use when it melts.

“I use that ice to bathe my kids,” Sakeny said. “It’s also hard work to get ice… I don’t trust that water plant right now.”

While the evacuation continues, Sakeni plans to stay behind.

“It’s no fun to go out and stay in a hotel,” he said. “There are six of us in there and we get cramped in there.”

But his wife and children will likely join others who are already on planes headed to other communities in the province.

Rita Wynne is among hundreds who have chosen to leave.

She was waiting with her grandchildren in the small airport terminal for the next flight to Niagara Falls.

“It’s stressful what’s going on, especially when you have kids and when they provide us with water in water bottles,” Wynne said.

“It is not enough when there are families, as if there is a big family in one house.”

Wynne said her family consists of 14 people and several generations.

She had never been to Niagara Falls before, but said it was better to stay in hotel rooms rather than rely on the local water.

“I think it’s too much of a Band-Aid solution at the water plant because we’re having problems.”

what went wrong

Northern Waterworks consultant Robert Lariviere was brought in to assess and help repair the damage to the Kashechewan water plant.

Lariviere said pumps at the plant failed and jammed. They had to be replaced.

“We found two (pumps) stuck in a pile of snow,” he said.

“They had failed at some point before and were not sent out for repair. They were simply put aside, so they had no spare pumps.”

He said that the sewer system has also not been cleaned for many years.

“The other problem that happens is that when the sewer comes back into the system, it loses all the debris and it gets deposited in the pipes,” Lariviere said.

“When the system starts draining, all the debris gets released, gets into the sewer, which causes the pumps to clog.”

Those blockages caused a significant sewage backup at Kashechewan’s nursing station, which had to be evacuated and relocated to an elementary school across the street.

Lariviere said it is not uncommon for equipment to fail at water treatment plants because the pumps run 24 hours a day.

“And not just in First Nations,” he said.

“I’ve also seen municipal systems fail. Things have broken down and budgets are tight. And sometimes you don’t always have parts, especially with older equipment.”

Lariviere said new water treatment plants have redundancies built in — for example, extra pumps as backup if something goes wrong. But this was not the case in the old case of Kashechewan Facility.

However, he praised the four local operators handling day-to-day operations at the plant.

“They really do a great job,” Lariviere said. “They have very detailed records… the water quality is very good for the most part.”

But he said when operators leave or retire, training replacements can be an issue.

what comes next

Wesley has called for greater support from both the federal and provincial governments to speed up extraction and do the necessary work to ensure local water is safe to drink.

“I ask Canada to support Kashechewan, to support our children, to support our elders,” he said.

In the long run, Wesley said his community, which is vulnerable to flooding every spring, needs to move to higher ground.

He said it is more difficult to achieve long-term investment in local infrastructure with continued risk.

Indigenous Services Canada spokesperson Eric Head said in an email to CBC News that on Dec. 4, the department approved approximately $8.4 million to conduct a detailed planning study to resettle the community.

“Indigenous Services Canada will continue to support Kashechewan First Nation in meeting the long-term needs of the community,” Head said.