Potable Water Usage

SUMMARY 

Stored Rainwater can easily be converted to drinking water through filtration, UV treatment, and a variety of filtration methods depending on your needs. To developers, builders, engineers and business owners looking into LEED certification points: this is your chance to earn credits, and contribute to SDGs (Target 6.4).

The Council of Canadians website states: "there are still 31 long term drinking water advisories on 29 reserves including some that have been in place for more than 25 years."

Humans have been capturing rainwater and creating storage solutions to drinking water for over 5,000 years. We are offering a modern solution to this traditional problem:

CHALLENGES

• Underfunding

Inadequate treatment facilities persist because there's not enough sustained investment, leading to other challenges. However, there has been progress to end long-term drinking water advisories with First Nations and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) projects.

• Jurisdictional Confusion

There's a legal grey area between federal, provincial, and municipal governments, and in some instances, by the territories and by Aboriginal governments under self-government agreements. regarding who is responsible for water infrastructure in various communities. This mismatch leads to gaps in oversight and accountability. "All jurisdictions in Canada are actively addressing challenges" with funding.

• GoC Federal Bureaucracy

Ongoing Bill C-59 and Bill C-61 included the Canada Water Agency Act, which sought to establish the Canada Water Agency as a standalone entity. Progress on all proposed legislation ended, furthering multi-jurisdictional issues. Within the proposed legislation was the First Nations Act and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) right to recognize the existing inherent right of First Nations to self-government, including jurisdiction in relation to water, source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nation lands.

• Infrastructure

Communities rely on small, outdated water treatment plants that can’t handle their population size or environmental conditions. Update: "by 2025 Canada will increase the annual funding it provides to support the O&M of water and wastewater systems on a permanent basis by almost four times."

• Environmental Challenges

Many reserves are located in isolated or northern regions, which creates the need for boil-water advisories for decades, with the excuse that Indigenous communities were placed on land without adequate planning or support for drinking water.

NEXT STEPS AND OPPORTUNITIES

• Low-cost, scalable systems

Rainwater harvesting can start with basic infrastructure (rainwater gutters, filters, cistern tanks, potable water filters, and access points) and provide broader resolutions over time.

• Off-grid and Independent Filtration

Rainwater systems reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure, bypassing jurisdictional disputes, ensuring clean drinking water today vs broader long term commitments in GOV planning phases.

• Community Autonomy

Communities can maintain more control over their own rainwater infrastructure for drinking water, not inclusive of water sewage treatment (divide problems into solutions).

• Decentralized Infrastructure

Reduces stress on small, aging water plants by providing UV, carbon, and sediment filters for potable water immediate use, and build a use case on water usability.

• Colonial Legacy

Reclaim sovereignty over natural resources; land stewardship can be combined with modern tech for rainwater systems.

OUR PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

1. Solving Short Term Drinking Water Advisories

Once water is claimed to be unsafe, the quickest way to potable water without boiling groundwater would be harvesting rainwater with filtration, as a LOW TECH solution. Chippewas of the Thames First Nation is a great example of who could benefit here.

2. Identification & Planning Long Term

New infrastructure takes longer lifecycles to include wastewater and plants, and when combined with the rainwater proposed solution 1 above, the rainwater cisterns can play a role in feeding the treatment plant, for off-grid water independence (or partial reliance to on-grid).

3. Preventing advisories being long-term issues

Harvesting rainwater into underground cisterns can always be reverted back to basic filtration, and our implemented system can be reverted back as a fail safe for risk mitigation scenarios.