Health was a big topic so far this week at the Joint Chiefs Assembly being held in Dakota Tipi First Nation. Connected to the health issue, was a concern regarding water and sewage treatment systems in first nation communities. Sundance Construction owner Jocelyn Burzuik presented some solutions, and outlines her presentation.

"Basically what I was talking to the first nations about was the idea that there are alternatives out there to producing clean and safe drinking water in their communities. So, in terms of the water treatment systems available, the sewage treatment systems available, but also how we build them. After my presentation, every single one of those people that came up to me, they all said one thing: Their systems were too small; they couldn't handle growth; couldn't handle capacity where it wasn't working properly."

Burzuik explains first nation communities weren't implemented with systems any other community in the country enjoys.

Joint Chiefs Assembly, held at Dakota Tipi First Nation"Why did the planning not go into it to allow for the growth and expansion of a community just like it would for any other municipality? Every single municipality builds for growth in mind, but not on first nation communities and not Métis communities. Their growth is considered static. Therefore, if you grow, that's it. You don't get anything else with that. So, I said there has to be a better model. There has to a be cost effective model and a different way to build that is more cost effective where, instead of consultants going out there and doing the design separate from the contractors, separate from the community, all three are brought together."

She explains the output of sewage on many reserves only contributes to the problem.

"In northern communities, it doesn't necessarily go to a lagoon like it would down here. It goes back into the river system, or back into the lake. And the next community down the line is sucking it up through their intake line and then their sucking that into their plant, and that's what they're taking in as their water. Would we be happy? In southern Manitoba we can get filtration systems and we can put that on our individual wells, or we can have access to clean drinking water. I've been in schools in communities where they haven't drank the water in that school for three years. The kids all use bottled water in that school. That's it. You kind of get used to it, right? You're kind of taught generationally that it's okay to not have clean drinking water. But it's not. Would we put up with it here? Some communities, ten years on a boiled water advisory. Ten years. So why?""

She notes several chiefs approached her asking her questions.

"Basically all the questions came down to, 'Hey, I have this existing system. It's not working properly. Is there a way that we can add to our existing system to make this work for capacity?' The other one was, 'How come we are spending so much money in chemicals within our water treatment and water sewage treatment systems?'"

Burzuik says she received a lot of interest.

"These communities are all onboard. They want to be healthy. They want a system that's cost effective. And they want an alternative. And they don't want an alternative where they're on the list for three years down the road. They want an alternative that they can implement in one year. Or two years, if they can get the funding in place. That's what we need to do."

Burzuik adds chemicals are being added to the water systems that only worsen the sad health situations on reserves.

"Well, the biggest offender is alum. Alum is something that is tied to potentially Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases like that."