It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, October 14, 2021
CANADA UPDATES
'We knew something was wrong': Iqaluit residents without drinking water
Wed., October 13, 2021
IQALUIT, Nunavut — Iqaluit residents filled blue plastic jugs and bottles Wednesday in the ice-cold Sylvia Grinnell River just outside the city after they were told tap water in the Nunavut capital may be unsafe to drink.
The city of about 8,000 people declared a local state of emergency Tuesday night saying its water supply could contain fuel.
Iqaluit mayor Kenny Bell said Wednesday the Nunavut government plans to fly in 80,000 litres of water to the city over three days.
Some residents complained last week on social media about a fuel smell in the water, but he said the water had gone through daily testing and it came back clean.
Then, on Tuesday, Bell said city staff opened a "typically-sealed" tank in the water treatment plant that holds treated water before it gets distributed throughout the city.
"There was a strong smell of petroleum products," Bell said.
If the water in that location is affected, he said, it would mean all of the city's water would be affected.
"We knew something was wrong," said Bell. "We're not 100 per cent sure if this is it but it most likely is based on the amount of smell in the tank."
City officials said water samples have been sent to a lab in Southern Canada, but noted it will take about five business days to get those results back.
In the meantime, the mayor said the city is cleaning the tank and inspecting its walls to look for cracks.
"We don't how it got there, why it's there, what it is," Bell said of the smell.
City water trucks were also pumping water from the river late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
The city made treated water available to residents at a water filling station, but it still needs to be boiled.
Andrew Tagak Jr., who had several water jugs to fill at the station, said he's been able to get enough water for himself and the three other people in his household.
"As long as I know it's fresh, I'm happy," Tagak Jr. told The Canadian Press.
He said he noticed a smell in his water last week but didn't think much about it.
"I didn't know it was going to be petroleum hydrocarbons. I felt upset ... but now we got the water and maybe now we can move on."
Katie Hughes, another resident, said she thought there was a fuel smell in her water for the last week and a half.
"I feel like the city should have been doing tests two weeks ago and it's their job to keep us safe," Hughes said.
Christine Karkow said she was irritated when she learned there might be something wrong with the water.
"There has been a lot of back and forth in the last week or so about whether it's safe or not," Karkow said.
The mayor said the city has an outside consulting firm looking into the problem.
Bell said he understands the fear and frustration many residents are feeling.
"I was telling people what the tests were saying. I was drinking the water. My kids were drinking the water," he said.
Schools across Iqaluit were closed Wednesday and government offices shut down by early afternoon because of the water problem.
Both Arctic Ventures and Northmart, the city's two major grocery stores, were out of bottled water by midday Wednesday. Both stores also sold out of plastic jugs.
In Iqaluit, like all of Nunavut's communities, bottled water already sells at a high cost.
For example, a 40-pack of 500 ml bottles of water at Northmart typically sells for $48.79 before tax, while a 24-pack of water is $27.99.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2021.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Emma Tranter, The Canadian Press
Gas smell in water remained a mystery for days: Iqaluit mayor
Wed., October 13, 2021
City officials searched but could not find the source of a fuel odour reported in Iqaluit’s water supply for more than a week, despite taking several samples and inspecting the city’s water treatment plant, says Mayor Kenny Bell.
City of Iqaluit staff first started hearing complaints on Oct. 2. Staff looked at the regular daily, weekly and monthly tests and the results were clean and met national standards, Bell said.
But the complaints kept coming.
In response, staff collected six samples from various people’s homes across the city and they all came back clean, Bell said. At some of the homes, people said they smelled an odour, but their neighbours reported their own water smelled clean.
“It was so sporadic,” Bell said of the reports.
Staff continued to monitor and test the water and check the water treatment facility located near Lake Geraldine, he said.
When asked why the city didn’t issue water advisory after the initial complaints, Bell answered that the city and Nunavut government agreed it wasn’t necessary.
“Ultimately, our tests were passing,” he said, adding chlorine and iron reacting to each other can cause fuel-like odours in water.
Bell said the city even checked in with the hospital after hearing reports on social media that people were feeling ill after drinking water.
“There was no uptake of stomach sicknesses, no chemical burns,” he said. “So, what do you do?”
Everything changed on Tuesday, three hours after the city released a second statement that all city water met national standards. That’s when the Nunavut government called Bell into an emergency meeting.
There, he was told public works staff had opened a sealed access vault that contains chemicals that the water mixes with to filter it before it is stored in holding tanks.
“When they opened it, they noticed that there was the smell of petroleum,” he said.
No one knows exactly what is in there, when it got in there or how.
“Once the tests come back, we will know definitively,” he said.
City staff are now trying to bypass those sealed access vaults and treating water in the holding tanks, Bell said.
While that’s happening, Bell said the GN is bringing 80,000 litres of water in jugs and bottles to Iqaluit over the next three days.
When asked how Iqalummiut are supposed to trust the city and the current guidelines for tap water usage after they were told twice that the water was safe to consume, Bell said:
“You can imagine how terrible it is for me. I was out there, trusting the science, telling people that they should be drinking the water. I was drinking the water, my kids were drinking the water, you know, we’re bathing in it.
“I don’t blame people for having that, that non-trust. We are working on fixing that trust and, I mean, this is a major step back.”
David Venn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunatsiaq News
Fuel in Iqaluit water not dangerous short term, but ‘very risky’ moving forward, says expert
By Emma Tranter The Canadian Press Posted October 14, 2021 WATCH: Tap water contaminated in Nunavut's capital, triggering state-of-emergency
A University of Saskatchewan professor who has worked in Iqaluit says any amount of fuel in drinking water is unsafe, but drinking it over the short term isn’t necessarily dangerous.
Iqaluit residents were told not to drink the city’s tap water Tuesday after a fuel smell was detected at the water treatment plant, but it’s still unknown whether there is fuel in the water.
Steven Siciliano, a microbiologist and toxicologist who has done research in the north, says the city did the right thing by telling its residents as soon as it found the smell.
A local state of emergency for the city of about 8,000 people was declared after more than a week of residents complaining on social media about a fuel smell in their tap water.
Siciliano says Iqaluit’s regular water testing looks for bacteria, not hydrocarbons, and notes the city shouldn’t be blamed for the situation.
Water samples from Iqaluit have been sent to a lab in Southern Canada for testing and are expected back in the coming days.
Siciliano says the human nose is “incredibly sensitive” to hydrocarbons, meaning people can smell it even if there’s a very low amount.
2:16Miller says he remains ‘committed’ to ensuring access to clean drinking water in First Nations communitiesMiller says he remains ‘committed’ to ensuring access to clean drinking water in First Nations communities – Mar 10, 2021
He says long-term exposure to compounds found in gasoline could be “very risky” but drinking it for a week or so probably isn’t going to do much harm.
“It’s not like if you have one cup of water, you’re poisoned for the rest of your life,” says Siciliano.
Despite that, he says the situation is urgent and a solution needs to be found as soon as possible.
“If they drank it before they found there was fuel, I don’t think they have grave cause for concern. Going forward, is it OK? Absolutely not,” he says.
As a comparison, he says smoking one or two cigarettes a day won’t give a person cancer but smoking a pack a day likely will.
“It’s kind of like that with the water. Drinking it every day for a week? Not going to give you cancer,” he says.
“We don’t know how much fuel there is. They may not be fuel in there — that’s the good news.”
Residents in Canada's north warned not to drink tap water
Possible petroleum contamination in water supply in capital city
Barry Ellsworth |14.10.2021 TRT
TRENTON, Canada
The capital city of Iqaluit in Canada's far north in Nunavut territory, home to the country’s indigenous Inuit people, declared a state of emergency Wednesday due to possible petroleum contamination of the city's water supply.
The government of Nunavut will fly in 80,000 liters of water over three days in an effort to defuse the crisis as officials attempt to find the source of the suspected contaminate.
"We are grateful for that," said Iqaluit Mayor Kenny Bell.
The community, located near Baffin Island, is isolated, and water must be flown in for the population of around 8,000. The advisory, issued by the Department of Health, follows reports of a fuel smell coming from taps in homes. When the city checked one of the tanks that holds water in its treatment plant, the smell was there too. "There was a strong smell of petroleum products," Bell told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). "We knew something was wrong."
The city is still days away from getting water test results.
"An active investigation of the city's drinking water system and additional testing of the drinking water are ongoing," said the health department advisory. "The Department of Health anticipates receiving additional test results from out of territory environmental laboratories in about five business days."
Petroleum hydrocarbons cannot be removed by boiling or filtering, so residents who need water were forced to take jugs to a pickup location to be filled. Bottled water was selling for CAN$9 a liter in Iqaluit stores.
Schools were closed Wednesday as well as government buildings. The latter were expected to reopen Thursday, according to a news release from the city.
Don’t drink from tap, Canadian city says, as gasoline suspected in water supply
State of emergency in Iqaluit, capital of Nunavut territory, as officials say they are testing water for petroleum hydrocarbons
Residents collect water from the Sylvia Grinnell River near Iqaluit. The city’s investigation into its main drinking water source began last week after residents complained their tap water had a gasoline-like smell. Photograph: Canadian Press/Rex/Shutterstock
Officials in Canada’s northernmost capital have declared a local state of emergency after finding possible evidence of gasoline in the city’s tap water.
Residents of Iqaluit, the capital of the Arctic territory of Nunavut, have been told not to drink, boil or cook with the city’s water.
In a public health advisory late on Tuesday, the Nunavut government said it was testing the city’s water for suspected petroleum hydrocarbons. Results from the testing are expected next week.
Until then, the government warned that newborns and infants should not be bathed in tap water, but Iqalummiut can still use the water for showers and cleaning.
The city’s investigation into its main drinking water source began last week after residents complained their tap water had a gasoline-like smell. Tests suggested the water was safe. But the most recent test, done in Ottawa, found microbes in the water.
Officials announced there was observed evidence of possible hydrocarbon contamination at the water treatment plant.
“In this case, we suspect that there is … some type of petroleum product in the water,” Amy Elgersma, chief administrative officer, told city council on Tuesday evening.
Schools in Iqaluit and neighbouring Apex were ordered closed on Wednesday, as well as all government buildings.
Water trucks have started pumping water from the Sylvia Grinnell River, a popular source of fresh water, and officials say they are working to bypass the tank with the suspected contamination to get the city’s water system back up and running.
In a region known for incredibly high food costs, a litre of bottled water currently sells for nearly C$9 (US$7.25), Mayor Kenny Bell told CBC North on Wednesday. A package of a dozen smaller bottles currently retails for about $24 – reflecting both the cost of shipping in supplies to a community 300km south of the Arctic circle, as well as the current demand for the product.
“It is extremely expensive, everything is extremely expensive here,” he said, adding the city was prioritizing getting water to elders. “Right now, we’re in limbo because there is not enough jugs to fill with water to give to people.”
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