funds

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water

Students at the Queen Elizabeth School are taking a stand to raise awareness and funds for clean drinking water for Indigenous communities. After learning about Anishinaabe Indigenous rights advocate Autumn Peltier and her mission to secure safe drinking water on all Canadian reserves, the school’s Grade 2/3 class was inspired to take action. The class wanted to contribute to the efforts of educating others about the struggles families on reserves face with unsafe drinking water and the importance of clean water for all.

Clean water shortage, COVID-19 outbreak puts northern Sask. Dene community in crisis

Clean water shortage, COVID-19 outbreak puts northern Sask. Dene community in crisis

"Our members don't have adequate access to clean water for basic hygiene and safety purposes, which is essential to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in our community," McDonald said. "At this point, we are experiencing an incredible strain on our essential staff, from our delivery drivers to our health-care staff who may have been in direct contact with the positive cases." She said 37 positive cases have been identified and 207 people were considered direct contacts with these people as of Monday. There are about 1,000 people living on reserve, meaning at least one-quarter of the membership are directly affected by the illness or by self-monitoring, according to the news release.

COVID-19 may delay Liberal pledge to end long-term boil water advisories on First Nations

COVID-19 may delay Liberal pledge to end long-term boil water advisories on First Nations

The pandemic has put some of the Liberal government's key deadlines of its reconciliation agenda in jeopardy, including a promise to end all long-term boil-water advisories on First Nations by next March. Last week's throne speech indicated a shift in language around the commitment to eliminate the long-term advisories. It made no reference to the 2021 deadline — which was clearly cited in the previous throne speech in 2019.

Baffled over the purpose of new water and watershed bylaw

Baffled over the purpose of new water and watershed bylaw

On Oct. 20, 2018 the citizens of the Cowichan Valley voted for establishing the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Service Establishment Bylaw (#4202). We thought that this bylaw would be used to protect our water supplies. It has been known for many years that the wells at three commercial establishments on Fisher Road, Cobble Hill had nitrate levels greatly exceeding the Health Canada Drinking Water Guidelines. These wells and surrounding CVRD monitoring wells have been monitored by a number of agencies, including the CVRD, in the past. The Cobble Hill Aquifer Interagency Task Group (CHAITG) was established to deal with this nitrate contamination and this Task Group commissioned Western Water Associates Ltd. (WWAL) to carry out a review of past studies. Surprisingly, this review did not review aquifer nitrite levels, only nitrate levels. Nitrite is a bigger concern than nitrate since nitrite can convert the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin to methemoglobin which does not carry oxygen. Thus, nitrite can cause tissue oxygen deficiency which is particularly problematical for infants and children since it can stunt their mental and physical growth.