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In July, three years after Cowichan Valley farmer Katy Ehrlich applied to get her farm's well licensed, provincial officials visited her farm. "They had an order with them that said that we had to stop diverting groundwater for commercial purposes. And we were like shocked," said Ehrlich, who had thought everything was fine with her application for a non-domestic groundwater licence, a requirement under the B.C. Water Sustainability Act (WSA).
Rebecca Zagozewski, executive director of the Saskatchewan First Nations Water Association, said she has seen contractors save on costs when building water treatment plants on reserves by using obsolete parts and failing to include maintenance manuals, ventilation or chemical rooms, and bathrooms. “Engineering companies will put in their bids obviously as low as they can go,” said Zagozewski.
The Semiahmoo First Nation has been under one of the longest continuous boil water advisories in Canadian history, but this recommended health safety practice will finally end sometime in 2021. Earlier this month, the First Nation held a ceremony recognizing the City of Surrey’s opening of the Semiahmoo Water Tie-in Connections to the water distribution system.
“They cut corners every day, every day,” said Justin Gee, vice-president of First Nations Engineering Services Ltd. Gee said he encountered these recurring problems while overseeing the work of a construction firm, Kingdom Construction Limited (KCL), building a water treatment plant 10 years ago in Wasauksing First Nation, along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, about 250 kilometres north of Toronto. “You have to be on them every step of the way,” said Gee, who was the contract administrator on the project. “You can’t leave them on their own.”
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller is preparing to launch a third-party investigation into the business practices of consultants and engineering companies hired to end Canada's longest-standing boil water advisory — a probe that could extend to other communities, CBC News has learned. "The problem is we have a system for delivering infrastructure that always goes with the lowest bidder," Angus said. "When you have a big-ticket item, like a water plant that's very expensive to build in a community, costs and corners get cut and that's the danger. Neskantaga has been a nightmare situation."
