WC148 MayJune 2026 - Magazine - Page 17
Water Issues
New treatment plant a key step to ending
boil advisory on Ontario First Nation
BY SAUL CHERNOS
HEN THE CHIPPEWAS OF NAWASH
Unceded First Nation, in Neyaashiinigmiing
on the southern shore of Georgian Bay in
south-central Ontario, embarked on a fouryear endeavour to build a new water treatment plant and significantly overhaul its water delivery
infrastructure, the community of more than 800 people
had high expectations of ending a long-standing boil-water advisory.
The old treatment plant, commissioned in 1990, had
many assets working in its favour, including coagulation and flocculation systems, two booster stations, a
wet well, pressure filters, and a 454-cubic-metre water
tower. However, the plant showed its age and frequently
reaching operating capacity, with pressure so low that
many hydrants lacked sufficient flow for firefighting.
Furthermore, the 27-kilometre network of distribution
pipe was losing 60 to 70 per cent of its supply to leakage,
with close inspection revealing some of it built from
substandard materials. Factor in water intakes clogged by
zebra mussels, obsolete filtering equipment, lack of chlorination, no backup power to the plant, and the need to
accommodate a growing population, Nawash councillors
decided on a complete overhaul.
The boil-water advisory, implemented in 2019, was
the last straw. But water treatment plant supervisor
Devin Wilhelm says the advisory didn’t reflect a sudden
crisis so much as it was to acknowledge that Ontario
water treatment plant standards had strengthened over
time, and that the system was built about a decade before
the catastrophe in the nearby Town of Walkerton shone
a spotlight on water protection. While First Nations
generally follow federal water treatment guidelines rather
than provincial regulations, Nawash issued the advisory because Ontario drinking water regulations 169/03
Devin Wilhelm
W
Saul Chernos is a freelance
writer for Water Canada.
WATER C AN ADA • M AY/JUNE 2026
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