Nunavut’s Chief Public Health Officer says tests didn’t turn up any carcinogens or other chemicals known to cause long-term damage to human health
Pat Kane/The Globe and Mail
The smell is expected to linger and get stronger, the city warned this weekend, as workers flush the water lines to clean out the contaminants, a process that will continue into the week.Meanwhile, the city will conduct an environmental assessment of the ground and soil in the area of the local water-treatment plant as it continues to investigate the source of the contamination, and hopes that the water will be safe to drink later this week.
Outside Iqaluit’s Nakasuk Elementary School on Saturday, a steady stream of residents pulled up in trucks, ATVs and taxis to pick up the allotted one case of bottled water per household. “This was before they put out the announcement, so he drank the water and as soon as he did that, he got even more sick,” Ms. Aqpik said. “He was home for the whole night.”Since then, the family has relied on jugs of water from the Sylvia Grinnell River and bottled water that the city is handing out by the case. Her daughters’ school was closed for three days. Out of an abundance of caution, Ms. Aqpik hasn’t had a bath since the night before the emergency was declared.
Mr. Moonias said his community members deal with not only physical effects like skin rashes and reactions from bathing and showering in unsafe tap water but there’s also the mental-health toll on generations of people who not only distrust their own water, but don’t trust the tap water when they are out of the remote community in places like Thunder Bay, for example.
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