Water treatment plant offers growing future to northern Ontario First Nation

By Craig A. Baker

For decades, many remote, northern First Nations in Ontario have struggled to develop their water treatment systems and other infrastructure. Even if they do have treatment systems, they are often not to current provincial design standards and regulations, leaving the community with boil water advisories.

In recent years, the federal government has demonstrated a commitment to ending long-standing boil water advisories in Canada’s Indigenous communities, investing in the futures of these communities.

When the members of Shoal Lake #40 First Nation began drawing safe water from their newly opened water treatment plant in September 2021, it marked a historic milestone for the people living on the reserve. Located on the Manitoba/ Ontario border, on the shores of Shoal Lake, the community went 24 years without safe drinking water.

The construction of a new water treatment facility is about a lot more than simply clean water. This piece of life-sustaining infrastructure offers the 650 members of the Shoal Lake #40 First Nation hope for a real future.

What sets Shoal Lake apart from the many other communities with similar stories is that their community became isolated on a man-made island so that nearby Winnipeg could develop its municipal water supply.

In 1915, a portion of the Shoal Lake #40 reserve was expropriated by Canada to allow the City of Winnipeg to source its municipal water from Shoal Lake, located almost entirely in Ontario. In the process, the inhabitants of the reserve were forced to relocate their settlement east, where the Winnipeg water works diversion canal turned their peninsula into an island. Their community was cut off from the mainland.

For a century, the political sensitivity of Winnipeg’s untreated water supply inhibited normal activities on the reserve and in 1989 many constraints were formalized under the terms of an agreement with the City of Winnipeg, the Province of Manitoba, and the Government of Canada.

Under the formalized agreement, Canada finally installed pipes, pumps, and indoor plumbing on the Shoal Lake #40 reserve throughout the 1990s. However, the systems approved by Indian Affairs, as the department was named at that time, failed to meet Ontario’s drinking water quality guidelines requiring filtration of surface waters.

In 1997, the community and the neighbouring community of Iskatweizaagegan First Nation suffered an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis, a potentially fatal illness caused by a single-celled intestinal parasite resistant to chlorination. As a result, a boil water advisory was issued on all the recently built systems. It lasted 24 years.

First Nations Engineering Services Ltd., a 100% Aboriginal-owned engineering firm, became part of this story in 2005, when the community contracted them to design a water treatment plant that met the standards of the day. It took three attempts—in 2007, 2012 and finally in 2019—before a budget was approved to construct the plant.

The history of Shoal Lake #40 First Nation and their struggle for clean water gives context to why infrastructure is so crucial in remote Indigenous communities. The design and construction of their treatment plant and water supply is another side of the story. While the project went very smoothly, there were many times that it could have soured and gone over time and budget.

Relationship management is critical to the success of projects within Indigenous communities. Firstly, many of them have decades, if not more, of experience of being overlooked and neglected by government and industry alike. It is difficult to gain their trust and easy to lose it.

The involvement of multiple jurisdictions can mean many stakeholders are involved, from Indigenous Services Canada to neighbouring municipalities and two provinces, all the normal regulatory bodies, as well as contractors and sub-contractors. With everyone involved, it is important to keep in mind that ultimately the work is being done for the community.

Respect for the community and its people is also paramount. It is important to connect with them and understand their traditions as well as concerns. The Shoal Lake #40 project engaged and followed the guidance and ceremonies of community elders in the identification and protection of medicinal plants, continued overleaf…

In the design of the system itself, there was opportunity to incorporate creative problem solving.

as well as the protection of sacred and culturally important sites.

Presently, COVID-19 is a major complication for infrastructure projects in Indigenous communities. Each one functions independently of provincial health and safety protocols, and many have implemented their own practices, often at a higher level of requirement than the province.

During the construction of the Shoal Lake #40 reserve’s water system, thanks to protocols implemented with the community and in collaboration with both Manitoba and Ontario, there was zero transmission of COVID-19 within the community over the two years of construction.

This was a big win for the project and a testament to the dedication of the community’s health staff and the cooperation of the entire project team.

Remoteness is another challenge with many Indigenous communities. In the case of the Shoal Lake #40 reserve, they had been detached from the mainland until early 2019. At that time, Freedom Road was completed, connecting the community to the Trans-Canada Highway.

Fortunately, this allowed labour and materials to reach the community without requiring them to be transported by barge from neighbouring Iskatweizaagegan First Nation.

Furthermore, it is important that projects like these do more than just build infrastructure within Indigenous communities.

The new water treatment facility offers the 650 members of the Shoal Lake #40 First Nation hope for a real future.

They also offer an opportunity to demonstrate and grow their local labour forces. Incorporating clauses into contracts that require Indigenous labour and contractors to be used is one means to accomplish this goal.

However, Shoal Lake #40 First Nation took this one step further and required that all prequalified general contractors be at

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least 51% Indigenous-owned. The successful general contractor was a joint venture between Kekekoziibii Development Corporation, Shoal Lake #40 First Nation’s community economic development corporation, and Sigfusson Northern.

This satisfied the requirement for a 51% Indigenous-owned contractor, which was a first in Canada for a contract of this size. Thus, the water treatment plant was built by the community as much as for them.

In the design of the system itself, there was opportunity to incorporate creative problem solving. Existing pumps and distribution pipes that had been built in the 1990s had to remain in use during the construction of new infrastructure. This made it possible to continue using these components and implement economical water main designs and retrofits to connect them to the new water treatment plant.

For southern First Nations located near non-Indigenous communities, municipal-type service agreements, where the First Nations water and wastewater systems are connected to the neighbouring municipalities’ infrastructure, are often the most economical solution to their water supply needs.

However, for remote communities, constructing a treatment facility is often the only solution. As public support grows for infrastructure in Indigenous communities meeting the same standards as their off-reserve neighbours, the future looks good. However, there are challenges to address. These include ensuring ongoing funding for the operation and maintenance of existing and new infrastructure and the rising cost of constructing these new facilities.

In the past 20 years, construction costs have more than tripled for water treatment facilities, partly due to inflation and partly due to improvements in standards. This is not a barrier to project approvals right now and hopefully it remains this way long enough to see equitable access to clean drinking water throughout Canada.

Operation and maintenance funding subsidies from the federal government for water systems on reserves have remained largely static for the past 30 years. There have been slight improvements recently. Improved funding for water systems must be mandatory for these new and existing systems to function sustainably for their design life. With commitments to fund ongoing maintenance and continuous training of qualified local operators, the investments into Indigenous infrastructure will ensure that the communities and the people living in them can thrive, grow, and build their own futures.

Craig A. Baker is with First Nations Engineering Services Ltd. For more information, email: cbaker@fnesl.ca

Responsible engineering starts with people.

Because when you engineer for people, you also engineer for a better world.

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