World Water Day Challenge March 22nd

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) is responsible for all water treatment in aboriginal communities in Canada. INAC's Operating Instruction #14 (used by engineers when designing water treatment plants to find out how much water to produce) states: "The design water consumption rate for community distribution systems is 235 L/capita/day and 120 L/capita/day for those on truck haul systems (i.e. people on cisterns at their houses"). Nonaboriginal communities allocation of water fluctuates, but as an example the average for Saskatchewan was 456 L/capita/day for 2002 (Saskatchewan Watershed Authority).

Why should non-aboriginal communities be able to use 2-4 times more water than what aboriginal communities are required to live with? SDWF suggests that through water conservation 235 L should be sufficient for any Canadian. Unfortunately in aboriginal communities, INAC continues to fund only the cheapest toilets (typically wasting water through poor design, high volume, poor components of flappers resulting in leaks etc). There are, however, aboriginal communities that are now seriously looking into getting quality toilets with low flushes (2 to 6L flushes, dual systems). Water conservation has a much faster pay-back in aboriginal than in non-aboriginal communities as there are on average three times more people per toilet in aboriginal communities in Canada as a result of overcrowding.

-In addition to water conservation, drinking water quality problems don't stop in aboriginal communities, but are systemic throughout Canada's rural communities where poor quality water sources combine with lack of human and financial resources to not being able to effectively treat the water. And, following the lead of Health Canada, provincial agencies hide behind a small subset of the Canadian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines so that they can pretend the water is safe. Each province has adopted the federal guidelines in some fashion, but with water being a "provincial" mandate acceptable water quality varies from province to province.

If that isn't enough let's try to make sure that we start early to indoctrinate our people that everything is just fine. In Saskatchewan the provincial government has increased the allowable levels of "Total Dissolved Solids" from 500 mg/L (used by other provinces and the rest of the world) to 1,500 mg/L; without this proclamation few groundwater sources in Saskatchewan would qualify as "drinking water". And Saskatchewan has gone further removing "water" from the provincial high school curriculum! However with almost 150,000 visitors each month to www.safewater.org , Canadians are becoming educated about Safe Drinking Water.

On March 22nd this World Water Day, we invite Canadians to accept our challenge

- Notify your MP that not only is Water a basic human right but that SAFE DRINKING WATER is a basic human right and they should vote accordingly at the United Nations!

- Demand National Drinking Water REGULATIONS not just guidelines

- Notify your MLAs that non-aboriginal Canadians can and should conserve water to use no more than our aboriginal Canadians

- Visit www.safewater.org, it is your responsibility to be educated about safe drinking water.