8 minute read
The Uummannaq, Greenland water emergency
By Pernille Erland Jensen, Technical University of Denmark; Mads Albæk Sørensen, Nukissiorfiit; and Kåre Hendriksen, Aalborg University
A citizen of Uummannaq enjoying the clean water from a tank when water could again be supplied by the waterworks of Uummanaq.
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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
Location of Uummannaq, Greenland.
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.
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.
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-
Nukissiorfiit Operations Consultant Mads Albæk with the prototype emergency supply.
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
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 accomplished 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-
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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 and 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
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