Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario plans evacuation of residents due to water plant failure

Kashechewan First Nation, along northern Ontario’s James Bay coast, plans to evacuate residents in the coming days because its water treatment system is in disrepair.

Chief Hosea Wesley declared a state of local emergency on Sunday. The Cree First Nation has about 2,300 residents.

“At this time, we cannot confirm when normal water production will resume,” he said in a news release. 

“Our priority is the safety of our community members. We are taking every possible step to stabilize the situation and ensure access to safe drinking water.”

Tyson Wesley, Kashechewan’s executive director, told CBC News that technicians with Northern Waterworks have arrived in the fly-in community to help repair the water treatment plant.

But Wesley said the parts needed for repairs are hard to come by and the aging plant has a number of issues.

In early December, pumps at the water treatment plant failed, which meant chemicals could not be mixed in to treat drinking water, he said.

Later that month, the plant’s raw sewage intake started failing as well.

“It’s almost like a snowball effect of things happening,” Wesley said.

Residents have been subsisting with bottled water, with a new shipment due to arrive by air on Tuesday, he said.

For other daily tasks, such as washing dishes and flushing toilets, residents have collected water from the Albany River or melted snow to get by.

“Everybody is kind of doing what we kind of used to do back in the day when we didn’t really have any running water in our community,” Wesley said.

He added an influenza outbreak in the community has been exacerbated with the lack of running water.

“Imagine if everybody else in the house not having the ability to use the washroom or not having the ability to wash their hands.”

Timing of treatment plant fixes up in the air

Wesley said in a public address to the community on Monday that Kashechewan received $1.7 million from Indigenous Services Canada in March to upgrade its water treatment plant.

But, he said, a long-term fix could be put on hold due to plans to move the flood-prone community to a site 30 kilometres to the north.

Under Justin Trudeau as prime minister, the goal was to complete that move by 2029. But with a new Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney, those plans are unclear.

“We haven’t really gained enough ground to really indicate when we’re going to move,” Wesley said. 

“So that’s something that we’ve been dealing with for a long time.”