Human practices have been at the forefront of the QGEM 2022 project since its inception. As a team, we immediately recognized that we could not possibly design a device for water diagnostics without involving Canadian Indigenous communities. The lack of safe drinking water in Indigenous communities is one of the greatest violations of human rights to water and sanitation as recognized by the United Nations.
For 26 years the Neskantaga First Nations community has been living without access to clean drinking water.
For 14 years the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte have been living without access to clean drinking water. This community is only an hour away from where our team has the luxury of completing our undergraduate degrees.
Figure 1. Mohawks Bay of Quinte map to Kingston Ontario
These are just two of the shocking statistics associated with the Indigenous Water Crisis in Canada. There are 31 Indigenous communities across the country with long-term drinking water advisories. This number of advisories could affect up to 115,000 people. Thus, we reached out to members of local Indigenous communities to hear their opinions on our project.
We had very engaging and productive conversations with the Queen’s University Office of Indigenous Initiatives, Chief Don R. Maracle of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, and Harry LaForme, a current Canadian judge and the first appellate court judge in Canadian history with a First Nations background.
Figure 2. Queen’s office of Indigenous Initiatives and Olthuis Kleer Townshend Law firm, firm of Harry LaForme.
Through a variety of meetings with these organizations/representatives, we took away 3 main ideas:
- Many purification devices fail in these communities because they are simply too difficult to operate or do not come with adequate instructions
- People in these communities want to know exactly why the water is making them sick.
- Typical water testing requires a public health officer from outside of the community
To respond to these requests, we have set out to design a device that is simple to use, minimized expensive equipment required, and can be practical for everyday use. We have also made a brochure outlining the possible water pathogens and symptoms if infected. We hope to get these brochures translated into the native languages of these communities.
Throughout the planning stage of our project, we also met with a plethora of professors from Queen’s University from various departments such as Geological Engineering and Civil Engineering who gave us insight into water specific technologies and the barriers our project may face.
Figure 3. From left to right: Dr. Bas Virens, Dr. Thamali Kariyawasam, and Dr. Geof Hall were all integral in shaping our project.
We learned that the root of contaminated drinking water in many of these communities is actually due to poor infrastructure and maintenance of water carrying pipes from the communities water treatment plant. This encouraged a need of a point of care device at homes as “clean” water was still becoming contaminated on the way to the house. We also learned that many of these smaller communities have central well systems from which they draw water which often contain harmful pathogens. A point of care device would be a rapid testing solution to ensure safe well water.
These professors asked us questions that revealed our gaps in knowledge, and also provided us advice to move forward. Their expertise guided us in our initial steps to begin the project on a strong foundation.
To further honour the communities whom we hope to help, we reflected upon many topics that we discussed with Chief Maracle. Thus, we took inspiration from Chief Maracle's description of the water cycle and its importance to Indigenous communities to design our logo. As well, we found it was our responsibility to consider the water scarcity issues of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte that Chief Maracle brought to our attention. Evaluating this new issue is important to the future steps of our project.
Figure 3. Chief R. Don Maracle is the chief of the Mohawks Bay of Quinte Tyendinaga township.
To ensure the success of our project, we also spoke with a plethora of water testing and wastewater monitoring experts at our university. We spoke to researchers from our Biology, Chemistry, Geological Sciences, and Civil Engineering departments. During a few of these discussions professors had asked us why we did not aim to solve the problem along a different area of water infrastructure. Some suggested we tackle our problem at the wells that these communities use. However, when we presented our project to representatives from Indigenous communities, they loved that our project was a point-of-care (POC) device. Representatives from the Office of Indigenous Initiatives made an excellent point that although a solution at the well-level appears to have benefits, some of these communities have contamination issues along the infrastructure between the wells and the faucets in buildings. Thus, a well-based solution would be obsolete in these communities, however, a POC device would ensure that all containments were destroyed before water consumption. The ability of the users to shape our project has been fundamental in the progression of our project.
We were also mentored and frequently met with bacterial detection expert and professor in the Queen’s Chemistry and Environmental Science departments, Dr Stephen Brown.
Figure 4. Dr. Stephen Brown, departments of Chemistry and Environmental Science
We met with Dr. Brown multiple times over the duration of our project as he shared his expertise in bacteria detection devices with us. Dr. Brown continued to ensure we understood the severity of drinking water regulatory standards and how they shaped our project. For example, we learned that for a successful pathogen test to be USEPA approved for the market, it must be able to detect a single E. coli cell in a 100 mL water sample. This degree of sensitivity has never been achieved in a LAMP assay, thus prompted us to explore engineering the polymerase responsible for LAMP to increase sensitivity.
We responded to these conversations by acknowledging our current prototypes limitations and setting a plan of future steps to better our device. We reflected on the ethical issues he presented us surrounding the consequences of false negatives in the industry of drinking water treatment. These conversations allowed us to critically evaluate the harm our device could cause if it was not tested and regulated properly.
Overall, scientific experts, community leaders, stakeholders, and future users of our device influenced the final product we have produced.
