SEPT. 12, 2024

There is a community outside Toronto where most people can’t drink their tap water. Patience is running out.

Jaela Bernstien reports on water insecurity in Six Nations of the Grand River.

VIDEO: PATRICK MORRELL/CBC; DESIGN: ANDREW MCMANUS/CBC

Don’t trust the water — it’s a lesson children are taught from a young age in Six Nations of the Grand River.

“If I use the tap water, I think I would get sick from it,” said 10-year-old Ellie Cooke.

She has never seen someone drink water from a faucet. “I think that’s kind of weird,” she said.

A girl uses a water cooler in her home to fill a plastic cup with water. The scene transitions to show her drinking from the cup in a sunlit kitchen.

Ellie Cooke, 10, gets a drink from a water cooler in her parent’s home. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

Ellie’s home, like most in Six Nations, isn’t connected to municipal water. On the sprawling reserve in Southwestern Ontario, roughly 70 per cent of households, or about 8,500 people, are without piped, reliable drinking water.

Ashley Cooke, Ellie’s mom, said it’s been this way her entire life.

“Mostly everybody knows the reserve doesn’t have clean drinking water,” she said. “We’ve never ever trusted our tap water.”

A boy presses the button on a water cooler to pour water. The water cooler is in a room next to a laundry machine with other household storage.

A woman’s manicured hand flips through a stack of bills from Wilson Water Haulage taped to the side of a fridge. Each bill is marked as $95 for 2,000 gallons of water.

Avery Cooke, Ellie’s twin brother, gets a drink. His mom flips through water bills. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

Water for showering, laundry and washing comes from a cistern filled every few weeks by a truck. Water for drinking comes from a water cooler filled by jugs bought at a local store.

In all, water for the family of six costs $250 monthly — and that’s with careful rationing.

A bird’s eye view captured from a drone pans past rows of tree-lined residential suburban streets. There are fields and forests on the outskirts of the neighborhood.

Outside reserve boundaries, homes in Caledonia are connected to treated municipal water. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

Six Nations is not isolated or remote. For instance, one edge of the reserve is just three kilometres, or a five minute drive, from homes with municipal water.

According to the Six Nations elected council, about 12,900 people live there, making it the most populous reserve in Canada. Residents come from six different Haudenosaunee nations — sometimes called the Iroquois: Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora.

Neighbouring Caledonia gets its water piped from Hamilton, over 25 kilometres away. That community’s average monthly water bill is $44 for potable tap water.

A woman sits in her kitchen. She’s speaking to someone else, whose profile is seen only from the back. The woman blinks and her lips mouth the word “wow,” then she looks away and raises her eyebrows.

Ashley Cooke didn’t know the average cost of municipal water in her region until CBC’s Jaela Bernstien told her. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

Cooke’s eyes widened when she learned how much water costs in the next town over.

“That’s drinkable water?” she asked. “Wow. Lucky.”

That gap in access to reliable drinking water is why the elected council of Six Nations is turning to the courts.

Why the water isn’t reliable

“Our community lacks basic infrastructure and no one outside the community gives a damn,” said elected chief Sherri-Lyn Hill.

Hill broke the news to CBC that Six Nations is preparing to sue the federal government over the lack of access to potable water. The legal action, which has not yet been filed, is expected to claim Canada has breached its “fiduciary duty” to Indigenous people — a constitutional responsibility.

A smiling woman with short red hair stands outside. The sun lights her face. Directly behind her there is a cylindrical tower. A sign on the structure reads “Six Nations of the Grand River.”

Six Nations elected chief Sherri-Lyn Hill said it’s time for the rest of Canada to know what’s happening in her community. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

“My people do not deserve this kind of treatment. Would this happen in Toronto?” Hill said.

Even though Six Nations has its own water treatment plant, only about a third of homes are hooked up to it.

Outside of the reserve’s core, called Ohsweken, most people rely on a patchwork of solutions for water.

Cynthia Martin visits the central filling station with a trailer-load of portable tanks to get water for her pool. It costs a dollar for each tank.

Martin said she wouldn’t trust this water for drinking, but some do.

The fact is, not everyone agrees on — or knows — which water source should be trusted.

Many people use wells, but most are shallow and poorly built, making them at risk of contamination. Cisterns are common, though it’s costly to pay for truck deliveries to fill them.

Published research has found several cases of E. coli in tap water in recent years, but it’s been difficult for researchers to consistently track the source of the contamination because people’s water sources vary and are often blended.

Hill said many families live with the day-to-day uncertainty of not knowing when their water will run out.

“Can they afford the next truckload of water? Are they going to be able to have enough water for their kids to bathe?” she said. “Those are the things that my community members are dealing with.”

A view inside a water treatment plant shows the interior of a large building with high ceilings, filled with tanks connected to pipes and conduits. The floor is cement slab. A garage door is open, revealing a parked pickup truck.

Federal funding falls short of maintaining and operating the current water infrastructure, let alone expanding it, according to Six Nations public works. (Anand Ram/CBC)

The current water treatment plant in Six Nations opened in 2014. It nearly quadrupled water treatment capacity on reserve.

The former federal Conservative government contributed $26 million towards the project in addition to another $15 million invested by Six Nations.

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But Hill said there has never been enough funding to build the water mains needed to connect the safe water supply throughout her community, leaving most homes without water service.

The reserve is not under a water advisory and Indigenous Services Canada considers “all residents of Six Nations of the Grand River have access to safe drinking water” through various means.

That’s simply not true, according to Hill.

In a wide hallway with fluorescent lighting and tile flooring, a man looks back over his shoulder mid-stride. In front of him sunlight streams through the building’s entrance doors.

Mike Montour strides through the water treatment plant he’s overseen since it was built a decade ago. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

The reality, according to Six Nations public works director Mike Montour, is more complicated.

Even though there are places to access clean water on the reserve, he said contaminants can enter the mix depending how water is transported and stored.

“Somebody might have bought an old container off of a farmer that was used to spray pesticides … and obviously, if they’re filling that up with water and expecting it to be potable at that point, it’s not potable, right?”

He said the bottom line is they need more funding — for day-to-day operational costs and for new water infrastructure.

A closeup image shows a man’s hand flicking a switch attached to the outside of a concrete wall. Pipes and metal fixtures — some of them rusted — jut out of the wall in the background.

A steady stream of clear water flows down from a rusted pipe into the opening of a blue plastic jug placed on the ground below it. It’s placed next to the same concrete wall as the previous image.

Some people’s only source for household water is this central filling station. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

The federal government has a responsibility to ensure safe drinking water on First Nation reserves south of the 60th parallel, providing funding for water infrastructure including upgrades and maintenance.

According to Montour, the federal money they receive doesn’t even cover the cost of supplying water to the homes currently connected to the plant, let alone expanding their infrastructure.

“Our operators are exhausted … they’re stretched thin,” he said.

According to Six Nations public works, Indigenous Services Canada provided about $710,000 in water funding in 2023, while expenses ran over $2 million.

An aerial perspective shows a top-down view of a murky brown waterway. There is a truck driving across a bridge that spans the river. The shorelines of the river are mostly forested and green. On the left side two vehicles are parked on a gravel road near the shore, next to a building.

The Six Nations treatment plant draws its water from the Grand River. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

In addition to annual funding, the federal Liberal government has contributed around $15 million toward water main extensions in the community since the water plant was built in 2014.

Six Nations has made several investments of its own totalling about $4 million.

Currently, water service is concentrated to homes in the northern part of the community, closest to the water treatment plant. The estimated cost to extend the water mains to the remaining parts of the northern area would be $60 million.

That would still leave most of the southern part of the erve without water service. Addressing that gap would likely involve extending lines from neighbouring counties since the Six Nations water treatment plant doesn’t have capacity to serve the entire population.

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In a statement, Indigenous Services Canada spokesperson Jacinthe Goulet acknowledged “the need to bring transformational change” and pointed to new legislation as one of the steps they are taking.

Bill C-61, also called the First Nations Clean Water Act, is being touted by the federal government as legislation that will establish the tools and standards necessary to ensure clean drinking water on First Nations lands.

Goulet also reiterated that Canada has invested millions to ensure residents of Six Nations “have access to safe drinking water, either through piped connections to their homes, trucked delivery to cisterns, or fill stations located throughout the community.”

Montour said that approach leaves residents living with the daily stress of not knowing when their water will run out.

“I think that our members should be living the same quality of life as any other person in this area in the world. And right now I can say that that’s not the case,” Montour said.

Daily life with a cistern

Ashley Cooke’s bungalow on the eastern side of Six Nations is about two kilometres from where the water main ends.

If the line is extended to her home one day, Cooke said she would like to get hooked up depending on the cost.

A woman stands outside on the grass under a blue sky. The lawn is blooming with clover and wildflowers. Behind her is a modern dark blue bungalow, with a front and back porch. Inside one of the basement windows is the Iroquois confederacy flag, which is purple with four connected white squares and an eastern white pine tree in the centre.

Ashley Cooke and her husband built this home five years ago. She said they opted for a cistern because so many wells on the reserve are contaminated. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

In the meantime, Cooke’s family has a system in place that works for them.

They limit water use, regularly check water levels in the cistern with a wooden dipstick, and keep a supply of water jugs on hand.

A closeup view shows a grey tube sticking out of the grass. The claw end of a hammer, held by a boy’s arms, is being used to pry a white cap off the tube.

A closeup view shows a woman’s manicured hand pulling a piece of lumber out of a grey tube jutting out of the ground. The bottom third of the piece of wood is wet.

Avery Cooke pries the cap off of the cistern as his mom measures water levels by dipping a piece of lumber inside. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

There are times when it’s been hard. Cooke vividly remembers a day when her twins, now 10 year olds, were babies.

“I was exhausted. I finally got them to sleep. I would normally wait for my husband to get home to shower, but I was like, ‘Hey, they’re both asleep at the same time. It’s perfect,’” Cooke recalled.

In the middle of her shower, the water ran out. “I wanted to cry.”

Two boys sit in a small open four-wheel vehicle framed in metal. They’re driving along a gravel lane, past fields of tall grass. A small pale blue bungalow sits in the distance.

Avery Cooke and Te Kaitiaki Pere, visiting from New Zealand, drive a dune buggy down the family laneway. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

“When I really do think about it, it does make me angry. But I try not to be angry and just try to live a good life and do what we have to do,” Cooke said.

“It’s not fair. But it works.”

Cooke gets her cistern filled by Wilson Water, one of several delivery companies that supply the reserve and surrounding areas.

Kevin Wilson hoped to retire a decade ago when the water treatment plant was completed, but he’s still driving delivery trucks and his daughter has taken over managing the family business.

He said he’d be happy to see the community serviced by treated water even if it means a dip in his business.

“It doesn’t work how it is,” Wilson said.

Calls come in at all hours of the day from people caught without water by surprise. Sometimes clients can’t afford to pay.

He’s since stopped working around the clock, but still does his best to prioritize urgent calls.

“If it wasn’t for us then people would be scrambling for water.”

Restoring water sovereignty

While Six Nations elected council hopes legal action will be the answer, experts within the community are working in parallel to raise awareness about water quality and to improve community knowledge over water resources.

Dawn Martin-Hill, who is Mohawk and co-chair of the Indigenous Education Council at McMaster University in Hamilton, understands on both a personal and professional level the impacts of water insecurity in her community.

A woman stands posed outside in short grass, with her hands clasped in front of her. She’s wearing a long black summer dress and her expression is solemn as she looks into the distance. Behind her there is tall grass lining the shore of a river. In the background there are some homes on the other shore.

McMaster professor Dawn Martin-Hill stands on the banks of the Grand River. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

“It’s a daily concern, but we’ve normalized it,” she said.

“Part of my research project has been to help raise awareness that this is not OK that we live like this, and next door in Caledonia or Hagersville … they don’t have these issues.”

Water drips onto a patch of gravel from a white plastic tube, the same one seen earlier in the story at the water filling station.

In the distance, a white tower is marked “Caledonia: Haldimand-Norfolk”. In the foreground, a woman walks through a McDonald’s parking lot in an urban setting.

Martin-Hill hopes to highlight the disparity between water access in Six Nations compared to other towns in Southwestern Ontario like Caledonia. (Turgut Yeter/CBC; Evan Mitsui/CBC)

She hopes to one day bring a dedicated research institute to Six Nations, allowing her community to independently monitor and manage its water sources long-term.

“We need data … and right now we don’t have the data,” said Martin-Hill, who is Ashley Cooke’s mom.

It was through her research program, in collaboration with McMaster University engineer Charles de Lannoy, that contaminants including E. coli were detected in tap water on reserve.

Two senior women sit outdoors in the shade in muskoka chairs, placed side by side. They’re surrounded by greenery and trees. One woman appears to be in the middle of speaking and the other woman’s head is turned to look at her.

Elders Norma Jacobs and Mary Sandy say improving drinking water should begin with caring for the watersheds that flow through their lands. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Martin-Hill regularly consults with both scientists and traditional elders, who emphasize the importance of thinking about water holistically — from the source all the way to the tap.

“Water is really important to all things that exist here, on Turtle Island,” said elder Norma Jacobs, using the Haudenausanee term for North America.

Two jet skis circle a murky river, leaving a wake behind them. A wooden dock juts out into the water. The shore is lined with tall grass and trees.

Jet skiers play on the Grand River near Chiefswood Park, in Six Nations. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

She points to a jet ski as it motors past on the Grand River.

“That’s how water’s changed,” she said. “There’s all gas and oil coming off of that motor. It’s going into the water and they don’t care … they’re not even thinking about how it affects the water.”

An aerial top-down view shows a small brown creek winding through wooded rural land.

A creek meanders through Six Nations of the Grand River. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Jacobs said when she was a child, she drank untreated water taken directly from the McKenzie Creek, which weaves through the reserve.

It’s become too polluted, she said, and now she buys her water in Caledonia.

A young adult holds a fish in their hands on the shore of a river as a friend snaps a photo with their cell phone. The shoreline is lined with concrete walls and stone.

Four boys stand in a group outside, adjusting their traditional dress. They’re wearing feathered headpieces and clothing with beaded and woven embellishments. In the background, pop up tents shade a crowd of people sitting on folding chairs. One of the boys has a large label pinned to his shirt that said “Grand River Smoke Dance.”

A group of five women wearing traditional dress, some sitting and some standing, are gathered in a crowd around bleachers outside. They’re wearing moccasins and brightly coloured clothing that’s embellished with embroidery and ribbons. Two of the women have labels pinned to their clothing that say “Grand River Smoke Dance.”

A young adult wearing headphones casts a fishing line into a river as the sun sets. The shore they are standing on is concrete. There’s an old defunct dam in the background and a sign that warns: Danger, No Swimming.

Young people fish from the Grand River and smoke dancers prepare for the Grand River Champion of Champions Powwow. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Asked how she’d like to see things change for the next generation, Jacobs told CBC: “I wish they could have good water” but said that she doubts it will happen in her grandchildren’s lifetime.

Dawn Martin-Hill shares that concern, which is why she’s working to lay the foundation for a better future.

“Canadians don’t realize how incredibly resilient and patient Indigenous people have been,” she said. “But I do know this younger generation thinks that my generation has been far too patient.”

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Written by: Jaela Bernstien • Editing: Lisa Johnson • Design and development: Andrew McManus, Adam Nyx, CBC News Labs

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