Fuel smell drove health official out of Iqaluit water treatment plant 4 days before public was notified
Department of Health flagged concerns from residents 10
days before do-not-consume order was issued
When Wilfred Ntiamoah, a Nunavut environmental health officer, assessed Iqaluit's water treatment plant on Oct. 8, the smell of diesel was so intense he had to leave the building to get some fresh air.
That was six days after the Department of Health first began investigating public concerns over a fuel smell in Iqaluit's drinking water. It would be another four days before the City of Iqaluit told its residents stop drinking the tap water due to possible fuel contamination.
Documents obtained by CBC through an access to information request show Ntiamoah flagged what smelled like diesel at the plant — an odour Ntiamoah described as "unbearable" at times.
Using an air quality monitor from Nunavut's Department of Environment, Ntiamoah recorded "significant" levels of fumes inside the plant, which he guessed were diesel fumes. The levels dropped when he went outside. He noted that they were the worst in the facility's basement.
He suggested the city bring on a consultant to find out whether the fumes inside the plant might be contributing to the smell in the water supply.
Photos Ntiamoah provided to Nunavut health officials also included a description of one water tank inside the plant as having an "oily" surface.
In another email sent to health officials that day, Ntiamoah said he wanted to explore the issue of the fumes further and questioned why the doors to the plant were opened widely.
"Was it to dissipate built-up … diesel smell/fumes," he wrote.
Health officials flagged issue on Oct. 2
Other emails obtained by CBC show the Department of Health first began investigating the issue on Oct. 2 after residents posted to social media about the smell. Health officials met with the city about it on Oct. 3.
Between Oct. 2 and 11, the city sent out initial water samples to an Ottawa lab for testing, but the samples hadn't been collected correctly — they were put in normal plastic bottles instead of specialized glass bottles. The water had to be transferred to the right containers by the lab, and ultimately those issues meant it was difficult to interpret the lab results.
City officials told Iqaluit's 8,000 residents not to drink the tap water on Oct. 12, after complaints started flooding in about the fuel smell.
The city declared a state of emergency that same day.
Steven Siciliano, a microbiologist and toxicologist who has done research in the North, later told the Canadian Press that the human nose is "incredibly sensitive" to hydrocarbons, meaning people can smell it even if there's a very low amount.
He compared drinking the water every day for a week to smoking one or two cigarettes a day vs. smoking an entire pack a day. He said long-term exposure to compounds found in gasoline could be "very risky" but drinking it for a week probably wouldn't do much harm.
Dr. Michael Patterson, the territory's chief medical health officer, has said repeatedly that there don't seem to be any risks to residents who drank the fuel-contaminated tap water.
He's also said he wants to be 100 per cent certain the water is safe to drink before lifting the do-not-consume order.
With files from Nick Murray
Posted December 3, 2021
WATCH: Contaminated Iqaluit water tank isolated following initial inspection
In the summer, the Sylvia Grinnell River near Iqaluit is a popular spot to fish for Arctic char where ice-cold water cascades over rocky ledges.
Now, with thick layers of ice and snow covering the flowing water below, it has become one of the Nunavut capital’s main water sources for drinking and cooking.
The other comes in thousands of plastic water bottles that arrive by plane.
READ MORE: Military headed to Iqaluit to help provide safe drinking water, Blair says
It’s been almost two months since Iqaluit’s tap water was declared undrinkable. On Oct. 12, the city declared a state of emergency when fuel was found in the water supply. Residents had complained the water coming out of their taps smelled like fuel.
Since then, the city has dug up an old underground fuel tank from 1962, which was buried next to the water treatment plant and thought to be the source of the contamination.
Iqaluit Mayor Kenny Bell says he’s frustrated because the city’s testing has come back clean since Oct. 23, but the Nunavut government has the final say in lifting the do-not-consume order.
The city has installed a device to monitor for petroleum, but the territory says it wants two. It also wants the city to build a system that would bypass the water treatment plant’s underground tanks.
Bell says those are important steps to preventing future problems, but he doesn’t think they should be tied to lifting the order.
“It could take three weeks, could take a month, could take two months to build the bypass because of parts and labour and what not,” Bell says.
“That’s going to take time that we frankly just don’t have.”
The city has said it will cost $130 million to fix the long-term problem and has called on the federal government to pay for it.
Water quality monitoring from the city shows that between Nov. 16 and Nov. 23 all sample results came back negative for petroleum hydrocarbons.
“The water is clean. These requirements are for a future possible event,” says Bell.
Throughout the emergency, the city has continued to hand out bottled water to residents at different sites around the city.
READ MORE: Iqaluit officials recommending rebate for customers amid drinking water crisis
But staff are strained, Bell says, and the city has had to close its gym, pool and two arenas to reallocate workers.
“We’re offering $32 per hour to hand out water, but we’ve only hired a couple of people. We just need more staff,” Bell says.
“We’re all tired. We were short-handed well before this crisis. It’s crap for all of us.”
The city has asked the Nunavut government for extra hands, but Bell says that request was denied because the territory has its own staffing issues.
In a statement, Nunavut’s health department says it’s still reviewing the city’s water quality assessments.
“The (Government of Nunavut) is awaiting confirmation from the contracted engineering firm that the site assessment and required remediation have been completed to assure the risk of repeat contamination has been mitigated,” says the statement.
“The Department of Health is working closely with the third party to assess the City of Iqaluit’s field investigation report.”
Nunavut’s department of community and government services, which contracted the engineering firm, did not respond when asked for the name of the company.
The Canadian Armed Forces also arrived in Iqaluit on Oct. 23 to collect and purify water from the Sylvia Grinnell River using a reverse osmosis system.
But the operation ground to a halt on Nov. 22, when high winds knocked over a military tent that was protecting the water purification system.
The military has since moved its system inside a hangar at the city’s airport, and plans to truck river water there for treatment. There’s no timeline for when the operation will start again.
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