NWT asks how new federal water security strategy will handle industry

As the federal government begins developing a national water security strategy, impacts from upstream industrial development are top of mind for the GNWT and Indigenous governments alike.

The recently announced strategy’s aim is to “address freshwater-related threats and opportunities” by protecting freshwater ecosystems and securing water for both communities and the economy.

The NWT faces particular challenges, said Katherine Balpataky, executive director of DataStream, an open-access platform for sharing information on freshwater health. Ten years ago, DataStream’s first project focused on the Mackenzie River basin by bringing together different community water monitoring programs.

Balpataky described the territory as home to an enormous water basin with lots of development upstream, including the likes of the Site C dam in BC and the Alberta oil sands. Water does not respect political boundaries, which is why a national strategy is so important, Balpataky said.

The GNWT says it flagged the same transboundary water issues – including potential releases of treated oil sands tailings water and development of nuclear power, data centres and hydroelectric facilities – as key upstream challenges. 

The territorial government has already submitted feedback to help shape the federal water security strategy. Right now, the federal government is accepting comments from the public. You can give input on the strategy’s vision, priorities and key actions until October 25.

A national strategy is arriving at a time when water has become a stated top priority for many northern Indigenous communities.

The Dene National Assembly recently passed a resolution to establish the Dene Water Council in recognition of “increasing pressures from industrial development, resource extraction, climate change, contamination, cumulative effects and other activities.” The council will be a Dene-wide institution dedicated to protecting, preserving, monitoring and restoring the waters of Dene territory.

“The creation of the Dene Water Council is something that has to be done because we don’t have a structure in place right now to deal with the water issue that affects all of our regions,” Gerry Cheezie, co-chair of the Keepers of the Water advocacy group and former chief of the Tthebatthie Denesųłiné Nation, said at last month’s assembly.

“The GNWT does not represent us on the water issues,” Cheezie said. “We have to take back that power, that control.”

A newly established Dene Water Council may be able to obtain federal funding for freshwater initiatives, Cheezie added.

The oil industry’s plan to treat toxic oil sands tailings and release them into the Athabasca River was a primary concern at the Dene National Assembly. First Nations in and around Fort Chipewyan have led the charge against the plan – known as treat and release – citing concern about possible negative impacts on wildlife, land, water and human health, particularly cancer.

Asked about the development of a national water security strategy, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam told Cabin Radio the federal government should look at his First Nation’s water guidelines and take them into consideration. 

“But Canada does not want to recognize our water policy, nor does Alberta want to recognize it,” Adam said.

Along with the more than a trillion litres of tailings held in containment ponds along the Athabasca River, oil sands development is contributing to climate change. Climate change is taking its toll and causing shifts in freshwater ecosystems that affect communities and drinking water sources, a GNWT statement on the topic read.

Persistent challenges include low water levels and drought, which in turn affect the aquatic ecosystem, community food security and Indigenous harvesting.

Another challenge is gaps in knowledge and data around water, something DataStream is trying to address.

Balpataky said the community monitoring DataStream has worked with for the past decade is “really robust.”

Data from that monitoring “is filling incredible gaps, and it is being used complementary to the government’s own data, academic data, and data of other sources,” Balpataky said. 

“That is a perfect model that the federal government could emulate in their water security strategy.”

Because Canada is filled with unique aquatic ecosystems, “there’s no one size fits all,” she said, adding the water strategy should take inspiration from the NWT’s own such strategy – Northern Voices, Northern Waters – which prioritizes the health of ecosystems, equally accounts for both scientific and traditional knowledge, and makes use of community-based monitoring.

‘Substantially unaltered’

The Canada Water Agency is leading the development of the national strategy.

Balpataky wonders how the strategy will end up interacting with the federal government’s economic imperatives, like Bill C-5, which allows ministers to exempt certain major projects from environmental regulations.

“The pace at which decisions are being made – in our attempts to diversify the economy and ensure we are still growing the GDP, and we are finding new ways to generate economic growth – could compromise water if we don’t do things wisely,” she said.

Some of the deregulation being proposed carries a real risk that sustainable waters will not be considered in the equation, Balpataky said, but she hopes a national strategy can apply some safeguards.

In its submission, the GNWT urged the Canada Water Agency to emphasize trust, effective communication, co-governance, Indigenous leadership and the integration of Indigenous knowledge in the strategy.

A commitment that “waters flowing into, within, or through the NWT remain substantially unaltered in quality, quantity and rates of flow” is fundamental, the GNWT told Cabin Radio in its emailed statement.

The territory said that commitment is “essential to maintaining traditional livelihoods and the cultural and spiritual wellbeing of NWT residents.”