Fixing Hay River water needs time. Officials say it needs context, too.

Hay River’s mayor and other officials at a Thursday public meeting acknowledged months are needed to get the town’s water back to Health Canada standards, but they also said the problem needed context.

In a Monday notice, residents of Hay River and nearby communities were warned that elevated levels of chemicals known as trihalomethanes, or THMs, had been detected in the communities’ water.

High levels of THMs can come when chlorine – used to disinfect drinking water – reacts with organic material such as decaying plants and algae that you might normally find in lakewater.

“Organic material in the raw water, in the lake just keeps going up. It may be the wildfire, may be what’s happening in Alberta, may be the low water – everything. It’s beyond our control,” said the NWT government’s chief environmental health officer, Chirag Rohit, at Thursday evening’s meeting.

As a result, residents have been told to take precautionary steps when they use water from the town treatment plant.

The advisory noted that while no related illnesses have been reported, the notice was being published “out of an abundance of caution” as exposure to high levels of THMs over a lifetime – the time frame of 70 years was given – may increase the risk of cancer.

At Thursday’s meeting, Mayor Kandis Jameson tried to contextualize that part of the warning. She said past water advisories in Hay River had, in fact, been more concerning than this one.

“We’re no strangers to boil-water advisories,” Jameson told the meeting’s audience. Events like spring breakup on the Hay River often lead to muddier-than-normal water that causes problems at the town’s ageing treatment plant, sparking boil-water advisories. In 2020, for example, the town spent more than 100 days under such advisories.

“Those previous boil-water advisories that we’ve been under are way more serious than this one,” Jameson continued.

“When you see that ’70-years cancer’ – the minute we say cancer, we all panic and block out and don’t hear the rest of it.”

Jameson said the boil-water advisories associated with the likes of spring breakup bring the risk of E coli bacteria and more immediate serious illness.

“We’re up against E coli bacteria, stuff like that in the spring, and that’s almost been an annual thing. This, though it’s inconvenient, you’re not breathing it unless you’re in steam,” she said, quoting advice in this week’s advisory to provide ventilation if you are boiling water or having a shower.

“It’s the steam off the water when you’re boiling it that you need your fan on. Your hot shower, have a little cooler one, turn your fan on,” said the mayor. “So it’s not as scary as it sounds.”

‘No immediate risk’

“I’ve been drinking tap water the whole time. I thought Hay River had the best water in the world,” said Diana Smith, a resident at the meeting, during a question-and-answer session that followed an initial presentation.

“I had no idea any of this was going on until Monday night.”

Smith wanted to know why an advisory had come now.

Rohit had told residents that Health Canada guidelines for THMs set the limit at less than 100 micrograms per litre, averaged over four quarterly samples. He said that number is based on research linking long-term, high-level exposure to increased risks of certain cancers and liver or kidney problems, the effects of which might be expected to appear after 70 years of consumption.

Hay River’s THM readings gradually increased over the past year, Rohit said. In June 2024’s sample, the value was 18 micrograms per litre, rising to 106 in the August 2024 sample. But the running average, he said, wasn’t above 100 until a value for August 2025 was added to the tally. At that point, he said, an investigation began that resulted in the advisory.

“The point is, there is no immediate risk. The value is not that high,” he said.

“It’s starting to creep up. It’s very unlikely anyone, a healthy individual, can start to feel symptoms by these values.”

Rohit encouraged residents to take small steps to reduce their exposure, like limiting showers to 10 minutes, letting water sit overnight before drinking it, or using filters certified to remove THMs.

He said engineers are testing a range of modifications to reduce the organic matter entering the plant and adjust chlorine use in an effort to lower THM formation.

“When do we expect to see something? We are at this point expecting a couple of months. Certain things are beyond our control,” Rohit said.

‘Fingers crossed’ for water plant funding

A new water treatment plant, built to cope with higher levels of organic material, would be likely to solve the problem.

Hay River’s acting senior administrator, Blair Porter, said the town’s existing water treatment plant has been operational for nearly 50 years. While it is still running as planned, officials say it was not designed to handle this scenario and has reached the end of its life.

In 2020, Porter said, the NWT’s Department of Municipal and Community Affairs recommended that construction of a new water plant begin within five years. Porter said the current estimated cost of the project is $26-28 million.

Porter said the town has submitted an application for 75 percent of that cost to be covered by the federal government, and is searching for ways of covering the rest.

“I’ve been talking to a whole lot of people in Ottawa,” said Mayor Jameson. “I didn’t meet with anybody that didn’t hear that Hay River needed a water treatment plant, I’ll tell you. So we know we need a new one.

“If there was a cheaper option, I’d have found it. Things have been changing, standards have changed, and obviously things get old. The car, you can keep it limping along. You put a new roof on it or whatever. But we’re past that point.

“Fingers crossed that we should hear shortly, I think, on some funding. It would have been nice to be able to tell you that, yeah, we’re getting a new water treatment plant. I think we’re on the right track. I don’t want to jinx us, but I think shortly you should know if we are going to be able to build one.”

The mayor did acknowledge that communication about the THM issue could have been handled better.

“Lessons learned,” she told residents. “So I do thank you for your patience. I’m glad you’re all here, and I hope you got your questions answered.”