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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
The chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is voicing his concern over yet another incident at the Kearl oilsands facility, located about a 90-minute drive north of Fort McMurray. In a statement issued Thursday, Chief Allan Adam said the Nov. 13 incident, involving water, has “once again impacted the environment on our traditional territories.”
The Alberta government waited a month before calling an emergency response to one of the biggest releases of oilsands tailings in the province's history, a leaked document shows. The document, obtained by The Canadian Press, shows the province didn't initiate an emergency response until after First Nations chiefs in the area went public about how they were informed of the releases from Imperial Oil's Kearl mine, about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.
The federal government is providing bottled water and mental health services to First Nations struggling to deal with a spill from a tar sands tailings pond that went unreported for months in northern Alberta. “They’re devastated and their communities are devastated,” Indigenous Services Canada Minister Patty Hajdu said at a press conference in Ottawa on Monday. “They’re afraid that the water is contaminated.
Leadership in a northern Alberta hamlet will be evacuating about 150 people after a chemical mix-up at the community's water plant. Vern Janvier, chief of the Prairie Chipewyan First Nation, said the First Nation decided on Monday to offer residents who rely on piped water the option of leaving their homes. There are 107 houses on the system, and Janvier said from one to six people live in each house. He anticipates there will be between 150 and 200 evacuees.
The chief of Smith's Landing First Nation near Fort Smith, N.W.T, is calling on the territorial government to speak out against a northern Alberta mining project. "The government of the Northwest Territories is strangely silent … on the oil sands projects," Chief Gerry Cheezie said. Cheezie said that N.W.T. Premier Caroline Cochrane should be hosting meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to make sure the Indigenous communities living within the Mackenzie water system will not be affected by the controversial $20.6 billion Teck Frontier mining project that is proposed for a site 110 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.
