Puvirnituq, Nunavik: A winter water emergency

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

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 increases 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 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