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Keepers of the Water 2008 Gathering brings a pure message
Patrick Keller
Lakeside Leader
It's hard to argue about the importance of water.
The Keepers of the Athabasca “Water is Boss” Watershed Gathering brought a potent message to the Driftpile School on July 14.
The day’s presentations included a very spooky slideshow of water quality issues, tempered with a hint of optimism.
According to the presenters, Alberta’s primary resource is not oil at all, but water.
Indeed, they say, water is critical not just for human and community health, but for the environment as a whole. Ironically, water is also critical to the oil industry. Just like their program material reads, “Water is boss.”
The Keepers of the Water fear that Alberta’s most infamous industry may be taking precedence over the health and the needs of people who take their water from the Athabasca watershed.
They brought with them compelling evidence of the mismanagement and ill-treatment of several First Nations communities’ who for years have suffered with woefully inadequate and downright dangerous water treatment facilities from neglectful government bodies and powerful industry lobbyists who have insisted that everything was, excuse the pun, just ducky.
The Keepers have taken their presentation across Northern Alberta, from Jasper to Fort McMurray with many stops in between, but Driftpile was more than a whistle stop on the tour.
It turns out that the folks of Driftpile know all too well about “keeping the water.”
The small settlement has the distinct dishonour of having one of the longest running “boil water advisory” alerts of any Alberta community. For over 10 years, the people of Driftpile were told by Health Canada to boil all water they used.
The day began with a prayer, followed by traditional drums and song about the spirit and movement of water.
Athabasca Keepers Co-Chair Peter Cyprien from Fort Chipewyan set the tone as he outlined the importance of water stewardship on behalf of everyone.
“We live downriver of the tar sands. All of the effluents flow downstream, including toxic chemicals. Our people have died from rare cancers, our people are getting sick. Wildlife and fish get sick. We believe this is from oil sands development,” said Cyprien.
“We can’t sit back and say nothing, letting them take over, while they take away our livelihood. This is not just for our First Nations brothers, but all of our neighbors.”
The group is not alone in its belief that water is boss. In 2003, The U.N. declared safe drinking water a human right. It seems that Health Canada may not have gotten the message.
In the few short years since the group was formed, they have accomplished a fair bit.
Working alongside of health professional Dr. John O’Connor, they have revealed evidence of sediment and fish contamination that include high levels of mercury, arsenic and PAH’s (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Dr. O’Connor’s contention is that the incidence of rare cancers and auto-immune diseases in Fort Chipewyan are higher than normal due to water contamination in the Athabasca River, downstream of the Alberta Tar Sands.
With these findings, they created a petition directed at Health Canada and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada calling for a thorough toxicology test of human exposure to contaminants and, among other things, to determine if the Federal Fisheries Act has been contravened by tar sands development.
The movement has definitely gained steam. In Saddle Lake, Water Keepers now monitor a water supply that is used by Environment Canada as a “Zero Target” experiment.
This First Nation’s water supply is a dangerous concoction of dissolved organic compounds that gets whipped into a two foot thick froth. The milky white to dark green water beneath the froth is so thick with toxins that paddling a canoe leaves a trail.
Their message was simple: Access to safe and clean water is not conditional.
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