Worse Than Flint! This Is What Water Looks Like In Native American Potlotek Community
Published on by Heather Jepsen, Vice President of Operations at EcoloBlue, Inc in Government
CBC News reports that officials from Health Canada, Indigenous and Northern Affairs and a group of engineers will be coming to Potlotek First Nation to address the domestic water crisis in that community.
“They’re going to explain to our community members what’s the next steps,” he said, following a meeting Wednesday at the Health Canada office in Halifax. “We gotta get this settled. It is an emergency.”
Marshall also noted that officials say it will take two years to solve the problem of dirty, undrinkable water in Potlotek.
“That’s unacceptable.”
Community member Bernadette Marie Marshall told CBC News she’s angry because she suspects the water is making people sick, and she wants the government to see that residents are tested in a lab “to see what kind of minerals are in our body.”
Their Parliament member, Rodger Cuzner, said measures undertaken to fix the situation so far have been “Band-Aids” only.
Cuzner, the MP for Cape Breton-Canso outlined how repairs to the water delivery system, commissioned by Indigenous Affairs, have failed in fixing the problem.
“They’ve invested about $400,000 in replacing membranes, but it just hasn’t done the job,” he said. “A major initiative has to be undertaken.”
Cuzner said the federal government is committed to working with the community to construct a new water treatment facility, but he could not give a time frame for completion of the facility or when the community would have clean, potable water.
“We’re going to do all we can to try to [expedite] that, but we have to make sure it’s the right answer for Potlotek,” Cuzner said.
How can the water be allowed to get this bad? Doesn’t everyone have the right to clean water? There has to be a solution besides waiting another 2 years for water clean enough to take a bath!
Source: Counter Current News
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