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

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

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

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