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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
A First Nation, whose lake supplies drinking water to the city of Winnipeg, is suing for a century of alleged damages, according to a statement of claim filed Tuesday. The 13-page “injurious affection claim” seeks unspecified financial damages to compensate for the “devastating impacts of the Winnipeg aqueduct” that isolated the Anishinaabe community for more than 100 years.
About 100 million litres of fresh water flows west to the city of Winnipeg every day but the struggling Indigenous people who live on the shores of Shoal Lake say no benefits have ever flowed east to them. Compensation is decades overdue, they say, and they're now hoping favourable developments in their $500-million lawsuit against the city and the province of Ontario will tilt the odds their way.
Dozens of households in one Anishinaabe community in Manitoba are still dealing with a lack of access to clean water despite receiving extensive water and infrastructure upgrades funded by the federal government nearly three years ago, according to the community’s leadership. “Why put a great new treatment plant with clean drinking water when you can’t still hook up the community?” asks Hollow Water First Nation Chief Larry Barker, who said he won’t rest until the entire community is connected to the plant. Hollow Water First Nation is about 217 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.
