2022 Journal of the Northern Territories Water & Waste Association

Journal of the Northern Territories Water and Waste Association 2022

Water Emergencies in the Arctic

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Welcome to the 18th Edition of the NTWWA Journal. This year has presented the opportunity to get face to face with our Arctic water practitioner peers for the first time in two years – what a treat! A good time was had by all at the conference in Yellowknife in November. The Journal theme of Arctic Water Emergencies is very timely to the issues at hand in the Canadian Arctic and elsewhere in the panarctic world. It is a particular pleasure to have an article from our Greenland peers about an emergency that is very similar to the water emergency that occurred in Iqaluit in 2021. The other articles in the Journal provide water emergency perspectives from across the North American Arctic with a photo collage and an article on the Iqaluit water emergency.

In closing, I must blow my own horn because I have been honoured with the HC Lindsten Award for my service and leadership to the Western Canada Water (WCW) organization, to which the NTWWA is a constituent organization. The Lindsten Award was

instituted in 1952, and I am the 70th recipient of the award. As you may not know, I represented the NTWWA on the WCW Board, and I was a member of the NTWWA Board during the same period. My most notable contributions to both WCW and NTWWA have been my editorial activities over the past 20 years serving as a member of the WCW Magazine committee, and a contributor of over two dozen articles to the WCW magazine providing WCW members with insight and perspectives on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in the Canadian Arctic and the panarctic regions of the world.

If you have any questions or comments on the Journal, or any questions about Arctic water, please do not hesitate to contact me by email ken.johnson@exp.com or cryofront@gmail.com, or by cell or text at 780.984.8095. The NTWWA Journal Bibliography of nearly 170 articles from 2005 to 2021 is available online at www.issuu.com/cryofront. The back issues of the Journal are also available online at http://ntwwa.com/journal/ and https://issuu.com/cryofront. S

2022 Conference and Trade Show

Yellowknife, NWT

NTWWA Board – left to right: Joel Mercredi; Rob Osborne; Aaron Pooley; Greg Hamann; Elan Chalmers; Megan Lusty; Megan Muchpah-Gavin; Natalie Normandeau; Alan Harris, Kurt Stogrin; and Kevin Klengenberg.

Alan Harris, past President in a repeat performance.

Great Northern Drinking Water Competition – winner was Cape Corset, respresented by David Saila.

Pearl Benyk, retiring Administrator, who has supported the Board for 23 years.

Olivia Lee, past President, past Executive Director, and keen supporter of the Association.

CANADIAN ARMED FORCES IN IQALUIT –A MOSAIC

On October 22, 2021, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) received a Request for Assistance from the Government of Nunavut to support the City of Iqaluit’s contaminated water supply by providing two reverse osmosis water purification units (ROWPUs) and operators through operation LENTUS.

Operation LENTUS is the Canadian Armed Forces response to disasters in Canada. Territorial and community authorities are the first to respond when a disaster occurs. If they become overwhelmed, they may ask the CAF for help. Operation LENTUS follows an established plan of action to support communities in crisis. This plan can be adapted to multiple situations. S

Photos from Canadian Armed Forces with permission.

IQALUIT WATER EMERGENCY AND CANADIAN ARMED FORCES ASSISTANCE

Edited from Nunatsiaq News and various other sources

In early October 2021, residents of the City of Iqaluit started reporting, via social media, hydrocarbon odours coming from the water taps in their homes. Over the next 10 days, the City of Iqaluit and the Nunavut Government’s Department of Health tested the water to identify any public health risks associated with the odours and provide the necessary background information for decisions on potential actions in response to any contamination. On October 12th, the City of Iqaluit declared

a state of emergency associated with hydrocarbon contamination of the city’s drinking water system. The Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health issued a “Do Not Consume” water advisory at the same time. This water advisory affected all 8,000-plus residents of Iqaluit. This was a story that made national and international headlines.

Iqaluit’s remote location 2,000 kilometres north of Ottawa. As the emergency unfolded, the Qikiqtani General Hospital cancelled surgeries due to concerns about the quality of the tap water for their instrument sterilization systems.

Following the Do Not Consume order, available bottled water in the city dried up quickly. Getting more bottled water shipped in was not easy to do given

Infrastructure creates opportunity for everyone

Emergency actions taken by the City included setting up filling stations for residents to access water from the nearby Sylvia Grinnell River. On October 22, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) received a Request for Assistance from the Government of Nunavut to support the water Everything we do is designed to deliver a better world.

The Water & Sanitation Section of the Department of Municipal & Community Affairs recently developed a smartphone App to assist water treatment plant operators with their day to day regulatory and maintenance tasks. Available for both iOS and Android the free App can be found in the App store with a quick search for “NWT Water Operators”

emergency. On October 23, which was 11 days after the issue of the Do Not Consume order, two reverse osmosis drinking water purification units (ROWPU) and supporting infrastructure and military personnel, in an operation known by the name LENTUS, were flown to Iqaluit. A LENTUS operation is a CAF response to natural disasters within Canada

Meanwhile, the LENTUS personnel advised the City and Government that it would take about three days to set up the reverse osmosis water purification units. The Canadian military had never operated the water purification units in cold temperatures, so it was anticipated the set up might take longer than it would in a warmer climate. It was a steep learning curve for everybody involved in the water emergency.

The setup time also included moving and organizing a large amount of equipment, including tents and heaters to help keep the machines warm and hoses and

bladders to hold the purified water. One of the considerations for the LENTUS site location was whether the slope of the roads was manageable for trucks filled with water and driving in icy conditions.

Around two dozen military personnel operated the mobile units to pump, pressurize, and filter water from the Sylvia Grinnell River using reverse osmosis. However, as the temperatures dropped to minus 15°C, the treatment systems were challenged and at times ice management was required around the Sylvia Grinnell River intake pipes.

On December 10, the Government of Nunavut lifted the Do Not Consume advisory and the City collected its last 40,000 litres of water from the military setup. The Canadian Armed Forces packed up and left Iqaluit after six weeks of purifying water for residents. However, only 10 of the members of the LENTUS operation left the city. The other

14 members stayed behind to carry out post mobilization tasks. In total, Operation LENTUS purified more than 300,000 litres of water in six weeks.

The emergency triggered other activities besides Operation LENTUS. While the LENTUS crew were providing safe water for the people of Iqaluit, the City and the Government of Nunavut started working with engineering consultants and third-party contractors to identify, understand, and solve the problem of the contamination of the city’s water supply. This was by no means an easy task, given that the entire water distribution system had been contaminated.

The City and the consultants were able to find the cause of the contamination, which was a buried “orphan” fuel tank beside the water treatment plant. A bypass system was put in place to avoid moving water through the area near the old, buried fuel tank until a complete cleaning could be done. The City also adjusted, installing a real-time online hydrocarbon monitoring system. All storage tanks and reservoirs that had been contaminated were cleaned and disinfected and the entire water distribution system was flushed.

Operation LENTUS was a learning exercise for the CAF. They left Iqaluit having learned some real lessons about how to operate in cold weather, as the water purification units had never been operated this far north before. For example, on November 23, harsh winds damaged a military tent and shut down the operation for about two weeks. The military had to move indoors into the North American Aerospace Defense Command Forward Operating location near the Iqaluit airport to start production again. All told, the Canadian Armed Forces provided a very necessary, strategic service to the residents of Iqaluit. The Canadian Armed Forces, and the soldiers who carried out the operation in particular, deserve the gratitude of the people of Iqaluit. S

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THE UUMMANNAQ, GREENLAND WATER EMERGENCY

By Pernille Erland Jensen, Technical University of Denmark; Mads Albæk Sørensen, Nukissiorfiit; and Kåre Hendriksen, Aalborg University

Meanwhile, plans on how to cope for the longer term developed. One option was to deliver untreated water for purposes other than drinking directly from the local water lakes. However, the idea did not receive approval from the Public Health Authorities. Hence, delivery of treated water in pallet tanks by boat from the settlement of Ikerasak, 45 kilometres away, was organized and put in place within two days.

A call of emergency

On September 20th, 2019, an unpleasant call of emergency reached the Nukissiorfiit head office in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. Nukissiorfiit supplies water and energy to all Greenlandic towns and settlements, and their local operator in the town of Uummannaq, 720 kilometres north of Nuuk, called in. The operator had observed oil “pearls” at the water surface in their storage tank for clean water.

As an immediate response, the local operator had decided to close the water intake to the tank, but as we all know, a single accident rarely comes alone. The valve, which should automatically shut the outlet pump off as the water level decreased, was broken, and thus in an instant, all the water contaminated with

oil, which had so far not made it to the consumers, emptied into the pipes of the community and contaminated the whole distribution system.

Now a true emergency prevailed. The Department of Environment, upon the advice from the Chief Public Health Officer, immediately issued a “do not use” order for the water in the community distribution system. Thus, Nukissiorfiit was in an emergency situation to provide safe water for the almost 1,300 inhabitants on the small Island community at 70° north latitude.

Response

Actions to make drinking water available in the town and nearby smaller settlements were implemented within only a few hours by the distribution of bottled water.

The urgency called for everyone able to help with further water supply. The local Greenlandic brewery Nuuk Imeq contributed by supplying two 20-cubic-meter tanks, transported by the Royal Arctic Line from the town of Aasiaat (more than 200 kilometres to the south) and filled by the vessels own drinking water tank.

As extensive sampling and analysis would be needed, sampling containers were attained from a commercial laboratory in Denmark, almost 3,500 kilometres away. However, the five-day wait from sampling to the issuing of the laboratory results was simply too long to manage the situation efficiently, so a smaller commercial lab was hired to set up a mobile lab directly in Uummannaq.

The ripple effects from the emergency included trouble for the Ikerasak water treatment plant because of the burden of the additional water needed for Uummannaq, which necessitated additional facility maintenance. Trouble also oc-

Location of Uummannaq, Greenland.

A citizen of Uummannaq enjoying the clean water from a tank when water could again be supplied by the waterworks of Uummanaq.

curred with the mobile community lab running out of hydrogen gas for their gas chromatograph, which was solved with the delivery of a container of gas by taxiboat from Nuuk, 700 kilometres to the south.

Disclosing the mystery

A question remained: how did the oil end up in the tank in the first place? Warnings that something was wrong had come a week before the emergency call, with signs of bacterial growth and the absence of residual chlorine in the samples tested at the water lab in Nuuk. As a response, a Public Health Order was given to increase chlorine dosing and resample for testing. However, because no residual chlorine could be detected upon the increased dosing, the local operator decided to add a larger dose directly into the clean water tank. He opened the tank from above, which was how he detected the oil.

By putting this information together, it was deduced that the cause of the trouble was the delivery of a chemical drum, apparently with a comment from the

delivery person, that it “probably” contained chlorine for disinfection. Handling the larger than expected chemical drum annoyed the operator

because chlorine

Nukissiorfiit Operations Consultant Mads Albæk with the prototype emergency supply.

had not been shipped in this way before, which was a smaller and more manageable container. The local operator decided to transfer the “chlorine” into empty proper chlorine containers. The operator did not notice that he had received a rare delivery of transformer oil, which was a clear and watery liquid and could easily be mistaken for a chlorine solution.

Final cleaning out

With the origins of the oil revealed and its non-toxic nature confirmed, authorities changed the use ban to a consumption ban, relieving the pressure on the emergency supply and the inhabitants within 24 hours of the incident.

With the emergency supply up and running, efforts were concentrated on getting rid of the oil left in the distribution system. Cleaning the water tanks was the first focus, which was accom-

plished by filling the tanks so that the oil film would float to the surface and allowing the contaminated water to be rinsed out. The rinsing was successful, and the disinfected water from was approved for drinking. The water could now be distributed to the pallet tanks in the community by using water trucks. With the availability of this water, the shipping of water from Ikerasak ceased.

However, the oil left in the pipes still contaminated the water delivered to households and was evident enough to show a visible oil film on any tap water surface. The distribution system had to be rinsed for weeks. During the period of rinsing, a GIS map of the system was made publicly available for the local inhabitants to follow the progress and the contamination levels in their neighborhood. By November 22nd, 2019, the last section of rinsing was completed. Water

monitoring ceased at the beginning of 2020.

On the lucky side of the story is the fact that the incident occurred during the ice-free season, and winter came unusually late that year. Transporting and storing water in large quantities of water would have been much more challenging had it occurred later in the winter.

Learnings from the incident

Nukissiorfiit implemented some policy measures associated with product evidence to prevent future incidents of similar character immediately after the incident. These measures included a ban on any repackaging of chemicals; instructions to immediately dispose of empty chemical packaging; and a ban of the use of chlorine solutions from containers with broken sealing.

While progress toward the Greenlan-

dic drinking water legislation including a risk-based approach (RBA) had been made before the incident, the incident served to highlight the need. The new act came into place in November 2021 and helps to ensure that future accidents caused by human high-risk behavior are prevented. With the new legislation, further education of local operators will be intensified, which was identified as a critical addressing point to avoid a repeat of the incident.

The incident underlined the fragility of the water supplies in Greenland’s unconnected communities. Two months of fetching water away from their premises was a hassle for the inhabitants of Uummannaq, but not least, it affected the seafood processing industry of the town, which had to stay on very low activity during the whole period. Various types of chemical treatment of the water

While progress toward the Greenlandic drinking water legislation including a risk-based approach (RBA) had been made before the incident, the incident served to highlight the need.

the use of activated carbon filters were suggested by Nukissiorfiit to relieve the situation for the local industry, but none of the proposed methods obtained approval from the authorities, who hesitated to introduce new and unfamiliar treatment methods in emergency. Thus, the need for a pre-approved emergency system became apparent.

Emergency supply

As a direct consequence, an emergency water supply was designed, and a prototype was built. The system, which fits into a small container consisting of filters, reverse osmosis (RO) units, and a UV unit, can be flown into any location

by the Air Greenland helicopters. The system can supply clean drinking water from lakes, rivers, or the sea. Flexible container sealings, which can easily fit inside the helicopter, will be delivered alongside the treatment unit. These may be mounted in any locally available container to create a safe water storage tank. The goal is for each of the six supply districts of Greenland to have their own emergency system at hand.

With the recent increases in climate change-related incidents and local incidents observed, emergency water supplies are deemed essential for future water supply safety in Greenland. S

TRUCKED WATER SUPPLY FOR FIRE PROTECTION IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

By Bianca Bocancea, Chris Keung, and Cam Marianayagam, EXP | Arctic

One of the main concerns with moving a water treatment plant away from a water source and closer to the community is the introduction of the need for a water pipeline. Having a pipeline introduces the significant risk of the line freezing and the potential for prolonged interruptions in water supply.

Fire protection must be reliable and accessible in the harsh and remote conditions of the Arctic.

Most Arctic communities do not have piped water distribution systems and therefore rely on trucks to deliver water from a water source to provide fire protection for the community. The promptness and reliability of a trucked water supply for fighting fires has been a continuing concern for communities in the Arctic.

Typically, community water trucks modified with a dump valve are used to deliver water from the water supply to the scene of a fire. At the fire scene, a portable tank is set up and the water trucks shuttle back and forth from the water supply to the scene of the fire to refill the portable tank. The fire truck then draws water from the tank to fight the fire.

When a community’s water treatment system is being designed, the most efficient route for getting water to fires in the community needs to be taken into

account. One of the considerations is whether moving the water treatment plant, where the trucks will be filled, should be moved closer to the community to improve the firefighting response time.

When a fire happens, time passes between the initial fire alert, the alarm sounding, the fire fighters getting to the fire hall and into their gear, and the fire truck leaving the firehall. This process taking 10 minutes or longer would not be out of the ordinary. While there are several variables at play (e.g., what caused the fire to ignite, the type and age of the building and its materials, and travel time from the firehall to the fire), what often happens is that by the time the fire truck arrives at the fire, it’s often too late to save the building and attention turns to preventing the spread of the fire to adjacent buildings.

When analyzing the process of providing fire protection, an important factor that must be considered is the potential for interruptions in the water supply.

Effective fire response is highly dependent on whether the water trucks are full and available to begin moving water in the community at the time of the initial response to a fire. One of the recommendations of the 1993 NWT Fire Protection Study, prepared by the Government of the Northwest Territories, was to keep water delivery trucks full during off-delivery hours and stored in the community parking garage or fire hall. During the hours when water trucks are delivering water in the community, increasing the total number of on-duty water trucks and putting schedules in place and ensuring they are adhered to can improve the likelihood that the water trucks are staggered effectively so that there are trucks with full tanks available in the community at all times for fire emergencies.

When considering the design requirements for water treatment plants for fire protection, the 2017 NWT Good Engineering Practice for Northern Water and Sewer Systems guidelines say there should be a minimum storage volume of 60 cubic metres to provide sufficient water for firefighting purposes.

Alternatively, a raw water bypass can be provided at the water treatment

Fire truck and portable storage basin in Kingait, Nunavut.

plant to reduce the need for additional onsite storage and heating of water for firefighting purposes. The raw water bypass allows operators to connect the trucks directly to the submersible intake pumps at the treatment plant, thereby bypassing the treatment process and the truckfill pumps. The intake pumps must be adequately sized. The recommended minimum emergency bypass rate is 1,000 litres per minute, or the peak day design flow for the water treatment plant if it exceeds 1,000 litres per minute. Typically, chlorine is still added when filling water trucks using a raw water bypass to fill with water for firefighting. Specific operational procedures and care must be taken to ensure the water trucks are emptied of all raw water intended for firefighting and disinfected after a fire response event so untreated water is not delivered to the community.

If all water for firefighting is obtained

Due to the large number of factors complicating the adequate and timely supply of water during response to a fire, the community could consider passive measures such as using fire-resistant building materials, public education on the importance of smoke alarms, sprinkler systems where possible, and increasing the space between buildings, to name a few.

from truckfill stations (and the raw water bypass was not used), a standby emergency power generator is necessary. An additional injection point must be put in place and used at the truckfill station to facilitate chlorination.

Due to the large number of factors complicating the adequate and timely supply of water during response to a fire, the community could consider passive measures such as using fire-resistant building materials, public education on the importance of smoke alarms, sprinkler systems where possible, and increasing the space between buildings, to name

a few. These options were discussed at length in the 1993 NWT Fire Protection Study.

Each of the Canadian Arctic territories has a position for a person with authority to make decisions about these matters. This person is generally referred to as the Territorial Fire Marshal. The preferences of communities for their individual community firefighting processes and equipment requirement should always be confirmed with the Territorial Fire Marshall of the given territory before their preferences are put into place. S

TULUKSAK, ALASKA, VILLAGE WATER CRISIS

Another option was donated bottled water that could be picked up from the Tuluksak Native Community office. However, the available supply of bottled water was quickly used up, and the community had to request enough bottled water from the State of Alaska to last them until the spring breakup. Bottled water was also available at the local store, but it was being sold for around $60 USD per case. There were other ways of getting donations of bottled water. Activists, a gold mining company, and even an Indigenous rapper from the pop-rap group the BlackEyed Peas offered to provide free bottled water to the residents.

In January 2021, a fire destroyed the water treatment plant and laundromat in the small Alaskan community of Tuluksak. The community has a population of 270 people and is located on the south bank of the Kuskokwim River, approximately 150 kilometres east of the Bering Sea and 600 kilometres west of Anchorage. It lies at approximately 61° 06’ N Latitude, 160° 58’ W Longitude.

After the water treatment plant was destroyed by the fire, the community considered its options for supplying drinking water to its residents. Each option had its advantages and disadvantages. Each individual resident made his or her choice of option to deal with the water crisis, depending on their trust of the water source and the means they had available to them to access the source.

One option was to extract water from a hole in the frozen Kuskokwim River, which is about three kilometres from the community. To get water this way required using a snowmachine or a four-wheeler vehicle. It would take the people 45 minutes for a round trip to the river to get water, and they would need to bring an ice pick with them since the hole in the ice could be frozen over. Another option was to get water from the smaller Tuluksak River, which is closer to the community. However, some residents did not trust the quality of the water from the Tuluksak River because of its brown colour.

Soon after the fire, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) installed a temporary but small water treatment plant in the school. The intake pipes for this plant were placed in the Tuluksak River. This water was brown, but much of the brown sediment could be settled out of the water, which improved its colour. The temporary water plant was housed in the school’s shop area and the treated water was only available to the residents for about six hours each day. It was anticipated that the temporary intake system would be too fragile to withstand the ice floes released during breakup.

When breakup came, the community had to pull the temporary water treatment plant’s intake system out of the river, wait for the river to be clear of ice, and then re-install it on a floating dock. To have an adequate supply of water for the community’s use during this period, the community had to prepare by filling their individual water storage tanks. There was a few thousand gallons of water storage available for each household, which could carry them through a couple weeks until the ice in the river cleared.

The third part of the emergency response was to deliver and install a larger portable water treatment plant for the community. It could be brought in on the ice road from Bethel, 50 kilometres east and downstream from Tuluksak. While the larger plant was portable, it was not easy to move. When it came to time to transport the unit, the contractors were plagued by thinning river ice. In the end, the condition of the ice road was too dangerous for them to bring the water plant on a truck, from Bethel, by driving on the ice road. At one point, the Army National Guard thought it might be able to fly the portable water plant to Tu-

Edited from articles by Associated Press and KYUK Radio News

Fire that destroyed water treatment plant and laundromat in Tuluksak, Alaska.

Location of Tuluksak, Alaska.

luksak using a Chinook helicopter. However, this option was not seriously considered or used.

Eventually, plans for bringing in the larger water treatment plant were put on hold until river conditions were stable enough to barge up the portable water plant, which a contractor finally did in June 2021. Workers completed installing the plant shortly after that and had it operating later in the summer.

The assessment done at the end of the summer of the emergency response found that the temporary YKHC water supply and treatment system that piped water from the Tuluksak River to the school was not used by many people in the community. The issues which caused the residents to not use this water supply were the perceived quality of the water, the fact that the school sits at the edge of town, and that access to that water was limited both by the school’s hours of operation and by its storage tanks.

The final phase of this complete process is the eventual building of a new permanent water treatment plant for the community. YKHC is working with the Government of Alaska and an engineering consultant to get updated cost estimates and timelines for this project. It is estimated that a new water treatment plant will cost about $8 million (USD), with construction to be completed in the summer of 2023. S

By Ron Kent, Founding Father of the NTWWA and Former Executive Director of the Association

Resiliency is a newer industry watchword that is used to guide engineers and developers in the design of infrastructure that can withstand hardship and, if damaged, can be quickly returned to service.

It’s expensive. This was talked about at a macro level in the 2018 Journal. But now, recent events have highlighted the strains on, and the fragility of, our infrastructure. As seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as during natural hazards and extreme weather events, infrastructure systems (such as health, power, water and sanitation, transport, and telecommunications) are particularly vulnerable. This is because they are often organized as networks through which even small local problems multiply quickly. Disruptions to infrastructure magnify chronic infrastructure challenges such as underfunding and poor maintenance and mismanagement, which have resulted in poor water quality and sanitation systems and transport networks and unreliable electricity grids.

That is quite a lot. But what does it mean for our northern communities? Can we, somehow, protect our existing infrastructure without spending much, or really any, money? How can make our infrastructure, or at least our services, resilient (durable and flexible) by taking advantage of the things that we have already? What if we look somewhere else for some inspiration?

But before we do that, I want to remind everyone that the

NTWWA was started 27 years ago with the confident, and maybe even arrogant, idea that we have ourselves and we can teach ourselves. Is it that long ago? Wow! Talk about confidence and durability! Anyway, look at any of the conference agendas and see how many Northerners there are making presentations and teaching. Yes, we can, can’t we?

Dr Kenneth Ginsburg, a children’s doctor, and human development expert, proposes that there are seven essential and interrelated components that make up being resilient – competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control. Let’s look at these.

Nope. Changed my mind.

In writing this piece, I began by defining each of these components from a Northern perspective. But as I babbled on and on, I realized that any Northerner who simply reads the list wouldn’t need to be reminded of what holds communities and people together because you live like that every single day. These are the things taught to all of us by our elders.

So, I stopped and thought that we should just get on with it, right? That’s the way we do things. Something needs to be done, so we do it.

What we need is: an inventory of the assets and infrastructure we have and a list of the worst things that could happen; and a plan for how we can continue to provide services before a replacement item can be delivered or built.

Can we look at Iqaluit for a moment? Who would have ever guessed there would be fuel contamination in the drinking water – for months? Maybe that should be on our list, too.

Okay. Now we have our inventory and our worst-case list. Let’s look at that list. Some of these things we can’t do anything about. But just because the fire hall burned down doesn’t mean we don’t need firefighting services. How can we do that? How did we do that before we got the fancy fire hall and the fire truck (that was lost in the blaze) and the ribbon cutting ceremony? Can we fight fires again like we did before we got the new firetruck? What do we have to do to make that way of doing things work again?

Starting with this example, perhaps the first thing we need is community awareness and fire prevention training. The volunteer firefighters could offer to check people’s homes for areas of danger, and they could go through the community buildings looking for dangerous “hot spots”.

Next, despite the awareness and prevention efforts, there could still be another fire. Can we use the water trucks to fight the fires? Do we even have enough hoses? Can we borrow some hoses from somewhere until new the hoses come in?

So, you see how this goes. What is great about it is that people all get together to come up with ideas that will work and be accepted in the community. Not that the official who came into the community to investigate can’t help (maybe they can help with some new hoses), but that wouldn’t be a solution developed by the community and be especially what your community needs.

Before I finish this article, and because it is for the NTWWA’s Journal, I want to return to something from the earlier information. Disruptions to infrastructure increase the challenges caused by chronic underfunding, poor maintenance, and mismanagement, all of which result in poor water quality and sanitation systems. We may not be able to do much about underfunding, but we can do something about poor maintenance and mismanagement. Yes, we can form an organization like the NTWWA.

What?! Okay, you caught me. I am bringing the whole argument around to the beginnings of the NTWWA itself. We have ourselves and we can teach ourselves. So, yes, we can. Let’s get ourselves prepared for the worst that may never happen. But if it does, we are ready. S

LONG-TERM SOLUTION TO IQALUIT’S WATER SUPPLY NEEDS

By Boris Allard, Senior Project Manager; Ken Johnson, Director of Arctic Engineering; Marc Lafleur, Project Manager, EXP | Arctic

The City of Iqaluit’s raw water supply comes from the Lake Geraldine reservoir, which is close to the power plant and the water treatment plant and at an elevation of approximately 110 metres above sea level. The construction of the reservoir was part of the community improvements which were done in the early 1960s. Since then, the capacity of the reservoir was increased three times by raising the height of the dam at the outlet of the lake. Further increases to the height of the dam are no longer possible.

The limitations of the Lake Geraldine reservoir were noted almost 40 years ago when a rock outcrop inside the reservoir was seen to be preventing water in the deepest part of the reservoir from being accessed from the intake area. At one point, an attempt was made to clear a channel through the rock outcrop so

that the water could be accessed from the intake area, but this was recognized to be a short-term solution.

In 2005, an engineering evaluation of the reservoir was done, and the conclusion reached was that an alternate water supply would be needed within a decade because the reservoir’s capacity was limited by the size of the catchment area and the amount of water which could be stored. Another problem was the anticipated growth of the community. An assessment was also done of the nearby Niaqunngut (Apex) River, but this catchment area has its own limitations.

Following the 2018 spring melt, City of Iqaluit staff observed record low water levels in the Lake Geraldine reservoir. Further investigation led to the conclusion that a water shortage was imminent and approximately 40,000 cubic metres of water would be required over the

2018-2019 winter before the Lake Geraldine reservoir could be replenished in the spring of 2019. A task force was formed to start a supplementary water supply project. Water was pumped overland from the Niaqunngut (Apex) River and Qikiqtaalik Lake to supplement the water in the reservoir.

This exercise has been repeated over the past several years.

While the water reservoir was being filled from the Niaqunngut (Apex) River, the City of Iqaluit hired EXP Services to do an Iqaluit Water Storage Pre-Feasibility Study (2020) to assess the options for providing additional water storage to satisfy the anticipated population growth and water demand for the city.

EXP’s study concluded that the present storage capacity of the Lake Geraldine reservoir was not adequate to satisfy future water demand of the city. An additional 1.8 million cubic metres would be required by the year 2050. The as-

Iqaluit reservoir 1: Proposed location of Iqaluit’s new water storage reservoir near Lake Geraldine and proposed supply line from Qikiqtaalik Lake.

sumptions included in this calculation included the fact that no water from the catchment area goes into the reservoir during the 250 days of winter and the three metres of ice cover on the reservoir takes up space which would otherwise be holding stored water.

In the beginning of the study, the potential alternative options for increasing the amount of water, which could be stored for the City’s use, were categorized as those alternatives which were close to Lake Geraldine and those which were not close to Lake Geraldine. After doing a detailed review of the risks and how easily the two types of options could be done, it was decided the alternatives which could be carried out close to Lake Geraldine were better plans. Several options in the category of being close to Lake Geraldine were analyzed,

and because of this analysis, three doable alternatives were chosen to be more closely evaluated. These alternatives were:

• Alternative 1: digging out rock and soil in the Lake Geraldine reservoir so it could store more water.

• Alternative 2: excavation of an additional reservoir near Lake Geraldine.

• Alternative 3: a combination of excavation and berming of an additional reservoir close to Lake Geraldine but not connected to the lake.

The three alternatives were evaluated using three main categories: technical performance, economic efficiency, and community impact. The evaluation determined the preferred alternative was Alternative 3 – the combination of the excavation and berming of an independent reservoir.

A preliminary analysis has been completed to determine the potential location for the preferred alternative. The preferred location selected was the higher ground to the northeast of Lake Geraldine. This alternative location could be excavated and an earth berm put in place along the perimeter of the new reservoir to enable it to store water.

It was important to take into consideration the terrain surrounding Lake Geraldine, including the location of rock escarpments, when selecting the potential location. Taking advantage of the escarpments and other features of the terrain helped with minimizing the capital costs associated with excavating and building berms around the proposed reservoir. The approximate total capital cost of this alternative is estimated to be $65 million, and the project design is expected to get underway in 2023. S

ACCESS TO WATER IN INUIT REGIONS OF CANADA (INUIT NUNANGAT)

Edited from a Report from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami 2020

Inuit Nunangat includes the Arctic regions of the Inuvialuit Nunangat in the Northwest Territories, the Nunavut Territory, the Nunavik Region of Northern Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut Region of Labrador. Canada is considered a water-wealthy nation where reliable access to clean drinking water is available to most citizens. However, this is not the case for many households and communities in the Inuit Nunangat, where most of the water is supplied with trucked systems, and the limited piped systems are deteriorating. Boil water advisories (BWAs) for water supply are not uncommon. These impacts are more than inconveniences for individuals and households as these drinking water challenges pose public health risks and limit access to other services such as healthcare and education.

Northern water infrastructure systems require the delivery of drinking water and the collection of sewage from individual households and community buildings. The infrastructure and equipment to support these systems include holding tanks for water and wastewater, water delivery trucks, sewage collection trucks, water reservoirs, water treatment facilities, sewage lagoons, and, on a limited basis, piped distribution and collection systems. Trucked water supply and sewage collection is the standard level of service for most communities in the Inuit Nunangat and it is utilized in 45 of the 51 Inuit communities in Canada. A handful of communities use piped systems for water delivery and sewage collection.

Many communities in Inuit Nunangat rely solely on chlorination for water treatment to provide disinfection for microbiological contaminants in water. This level of service is changing with the use of filtration water treatment plants throughout all the Inuit regions in Canada. A water treatment plant in a small community may cost more than $10 million and a planning, design, and construction period of almost five years.

Day-to-day operations and administration of the water and

sewer systems in the Inuit regions of Canada are the responsibility of the community governments. The senior governments provide financial, administrative, and technical support. BWAs are the most common type of drinking water advisory issued in Canada and, on average, account for 98 per cent of the drinking water advisories issued. BWAs are intended to inform consumers that they need to boil their water to protect their health against the potential presence of disease-causing bacteria, viruses, or parasites. BWAs for Inuit communities are coordinated between hamlet governments and regional governments (Government of the Northwest Territories, Government of Nunavut, Kativik Regional Government in Nunavik, and the Government of Nunatsiavut).

The extreme weather conditions in Inuit Nunangat at times present challenges for trucked water supply and sewage collection. These occasional conditions will limit the amount of water available to households and may require water management through rationing and other conservation methods. Adding to the public health risks is the amount of crowding in households throughout Inuit Nunangat. Crowded households, combined with limited trucked water supply, leads to risks associated with personal hygiene, such as limited hand washing and other hygiene-related activities. Handwashing with soap is one of the most effective preventive measures to stop the spread of diseases. Crowding and access to water may also increase the possibility of other poor health outcomes, including the risk of contracting communicable infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and tuberculosis. The rate of active tuberculosis reported among the people of Inuit Nunangat in 2016 was 38 times the rate for Canada as a whole.

Additionally, climate change impacts will likely affect availability of fresh water in Inuit Nunangat. As air temperatures rise, permafrost melts, and precipitation and evaporation patterns

change. A recent study suggests that multiple climate-driven factors are contributing to the shrinking surface area of Arctic lakes throughout the Inuit Nunangat. Many Inuit communities are either built on top of permafrost or next to permafrost. Permafrost beneath freshwater lakes and ponds is melting as temperatures warm, causing lakes and ponds to drain. Warming trends are causing precipitation to increase in the Arctic, but largely in the form of increased snowfall during winter, followed by hotter and drier summers that cause stored precipitation to evaporate at an increased rate. The implication for Inuit communities is that existing reservoirs and nearby sources of fresh

water from streams and lakes may become vulnerable to the effects of warming trends that deplete these available sources of drinking water.

Further investigation is required to fully understand how much drinking water quality and accessibility affects people and how many people are affected by these issues throughout Inuit Nunangat. Further research is also needed on the ongoing and potential impacts of climate change on community water supply in order to increase the suitability and effectiveness of municipal planning and development. S

Water treatment plant and truckfill facility with adjacent storage tank in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut.

PUVIRNITUQ, NUNAVIK: A WINTER WATER EMERGENCY

creases when there is limited access to water for handwashing. In the opinion of the local health professionals, the lack of water was one culprit to the outbreak in Puvirnituq.

The village of Puvirnituq is located on the east coast of Hudson Bay, in the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec, approximately 1,600 kilometres north of Ottawa. The community has 2,000 residents and operates on trucked water supply and trucked sewage collection.

Raw water is pumped from an intake pumphouse on the Puvirnituq River about five kilometres from the community. A buried raw water supply pipeline conveys water from the intake pumphouse directly to the Puvirnituq hospital, which is considered the priority water supply facility for the system. The same raw water supply pipeline extends from the hospital to a truckfill station from where water is supplied to the rest of the village.

During the winter of 2021, potable water was scarce at times and the village was in a water supply emergency. Household water tanks ran dry, and residents were forced to purchase expensive bottled water. Mechanical breakdowns at the intake pumphouse caused the raw water supply pipeline to freeze between

the intake pumphouse and the truckfill station. During this period, water deliveries to each house from the truckfill station – normally occurring once a week – were postponed or cancelled.

To provide water to the community, water trucks travelled to the Puvirnituq River to fill their tanks directly from the river and return to the village for distribution to the homes. This became a long and complex activity as the access road is a winding five-kilometre stretch of gravel roadway. Water supply to the hospital remained the priority and, thus, monopolized a good part of the water truck loads from the river. Residents were the second priority and often had long waits to fill their household tanks. Some residents even resorted to melting snow for water.

During this water emergency, the village was struggling with an outbreak of Hepatitis A. Over the course of the winter of 2021, it was reported that 34 people contracted hepatitis A in Puvirnituq. Hepatitis A may be transmitted by unwashed hands after a bowel movement, and the potential for this to happen in-

The connection between the amount of available potable water and occurrence of water-related diseases in the Arctic was documented nearly 40 years ago and is the basis for the Government of the Northwest Territories guidelines stating that a minimum of 90 litres per capita per day must be provided for communities with truck water supply systems.

Adding to the public health issues was the management of sewage. Some of the residents resorted to using “honey buckets” to save water over the traditional flush toilet. A “honey buckets” is a toilet created by placing a plastic bag in a large bucket. These buckets must be regularly emptied.

After more than two weeks after the water emergency began, the frozen raw water supply pipeline between the Puvirnituq River and the pumping station were thawed. This situation is not new to the village of Puvirnituq. In past winters, Puvirnituq experienced various water supply interruptions. However, previous water supply interruptions were never as disruptive as experienced in the winter of 2021.

The water emergency in Puvirnituq was limited in its scope; however, it highlighted the importance of the water supply system to the overall public health of an Arctic community. S

Edited from March 22, 2022 news article by Olivier Jean, La Press

2022 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ALAN HARRIS

Iwould like to thank the Board and members of the association for having given me the opportunity to serve as president over the past year. We’ve gone through some challenging times over the past several years with the COVID crises that fell upon us. I hope you have all been successful in your various directions and challenges involving northern water and waste during this period. It was great to see how many of you were able to attend the conference in Yellowknife.

The timing and organization of our yearly event continues to cause us organizational challenges. Travel limitations due to weather and access from some communities can create problems with attendance. The flight schedules and potential conflicts with other scheduled is a yearly juggling act for the conference and the operator training that follows the conference. Every year seems to throw something else at us.

The NTWWA Board has always at tempted to maintain a close balance of representatives from both Nunavut and the NWT. We have faced some challeng es over these past couple of years with several Board members stepping down due to ongoing changes in life, their loca tion, and careers. We’ve been very fortu nate during this time to have had volun teers’ step into those positions with not being able to meet for face to face for our annual meeting where we hold board elections.

Our past president Olivia Lee has ad vised us that she will no longer be seek ing a position on the Board. In her time in the various roles with the NTWWA, she has helped in the operations, organization of annual conferences, and NTWWA activities for over 15 years. Thank you, Olivia, for all the time and effort you have spent on our behalf.

Our long-time Administrator Pearl Benyk also advised us earlier this year that she is planning to retire after the conference this year. Thank you, Pearl, for always taking care of the many administrative tasks for the association, and in particular managing the chaos the is involved with organizing the annual conference. After 23 busy years of working with NTWWA, you will be deeply missed.

I also want to thank all the current board members for their involvement in the association. A special thanks to

Rob Osborne, our Executive Director also serving as a regular Director. As well, Greg Hamann for representing us in the Western Canada Water association and to our Southern director Kyle Humphrey. I’d also want to thank Ken Johnson for his continued commitment to the contributions, publication, and focused content of the NTWWA Journal.

I’d like to finish with a quote from the poet W.H. Auden:

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. S

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