There isn’t a point of care device on that is user friendly, affordable and reliable for Indigenous Communities to test for pathogens in their drinking water. Typical testing requires a public health officer from outside of the community to collect water samples and bring them back to a laboratory for testing which can take up to a week. There is no way for residents to see the results firsthand and they must take the officers word for it. Another issue for this approach is trust. The public health officer is typically not of Indigenous decent or is not from the community and there has been numerous occasions of skewed results or providing of the cheapest contractors to “fix” the water quality issues.

There have been countless water advisories in some communities on and off, there have also been consistent advisories in many for over 20 years (1). In many areas, Indigenous communities can’t simply get clean water from their tap. They have to rely on outside sources to provide safe drinking water such as by water trucks or plastic bottles, or else they are required to boil their water to remove contaminants. If not treated correctly, the water in these communities can lead to serious illness such as skin conditions, stomach illnesses, cancer or even death in some cases (2). As of November 1, 2021, there were 99 drinking water advisories set in place around First Nations communities across Canada, with 14 of them having been in place for over 10 years (1). Evidently, this ongoing issue has been affecting Indigenous communities across Canada for many years, and the situation still remains untreated in many places.

Many indigenous communities have had unsafe drinking water for over 20 years (1). Their sources of water such as wells and lakes contain heavy amounts of bacteria causing illnesses such as E. coli, salmonella, campylobacter, shigella, skin conditions such as rashes, and more. On top of these conditions, heavy metals and other common elements found in water everywhere are also very present in indigenous drinking water such as lead, mercury, manganese, iron, chlorine, cadmium arsenic, and more (1).

The issue with the water quality in indigenous communities stems from the lack of infrastructure needed to clean the water. Since many of these communities are far out from major cities and somewhat isolated, it can be difficult to gain access to proper water treatment supplies. Secondly, in many communities the cause for unsanitary water is complicated and cannot be solved with just one simple solution. Nature is always changing and adapting, meaning the cause for contaminated water is always changing and is the reason why certain water filtration systems can’t always be used to clean water.

Currently, communities rely heavily on plastic bottled water rather than tap water, due to its poor quality. This solution makes it difficult and costly to consistently acquire clean water, since new cases of water must be purchased every time another one runs out. Further, some communities rely on water trucks to deliver them clean drinking water. This involves trucks containing clean water driving to these communities sometimes weekly, to deliver water for residents to consume safely. The issue here is when the water from these trucks is finished, many residents tend to resort back to drinking their regular contaminated water which could result in serious illnesses.

Another common solution involves boiling water. When water advisories are announced or dirty tap water is present, many communities resort to boiling their water in hopes of killing any bacteria present. This alternative helps to remove harmful bacteria such as E. coli, campylobacter, shigella, salmonella, and more. The problem with this method is that, the boiled water already contains harmful contaminants such as metals which cannot be boiled from water. In fact, boiling water with metals present actually helps to concentrate the metals even further, thus polluting the water further. More, cyanobacteria such as blue green algae are commonly present in many indigenous communities which can’t be boiled or filtered out, again leading to more health-related issues if consumed.