Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 29, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A5 winnipegfreepress. com WATER WOES WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 A 5 EVERY SATURDAY 10am to 3pm Call Linda 204.275.7632 to arrange your personalized tour Need Transportation? We'll pick you up! Book your Complimentary Lunch Tour Today Tours are available at any time for your convenience Also join us IMMEDIATE AVAILABILITY OPEN HOUSE Live. Life. Here. All Inclusive Living for Active Seniors. .. Shuttle Bus to and from Medical Appointments .. Month to Month Lease .. Planned Social Activities .. All Meals and Snacks .. Courtyard and Garden patio .. Weekly Light Housekeeping .. Theatre and Exercise Facilities .. 24 hour security and life line ( Some conditions apply) 1778 Pembina Hwy 204.275.7632 RETIREMENT LIVING www. riverwoodsquare. com RETIREMENT LIVING Reserve Your Suite Then Spin To Win : Spin The Wheel of Treasures! 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But it's only when the taps quit working or the drinking water's dodgy that we really think about how good we've got it or what daily life might be like without it. That's what happened last winter for 2,600 Winnipeggers whose pipes froze and who went without water for weeks and months. And it's what's happened, to a minor degree, to the rest of us this week with our first full- scale boil- water advisory. That boil- water advisory appears likely to last less than 48 hours. It's made no one ill and will probably amount to a precaution prompted by one batch of false positives for E. coli. If all goes as expected, this will be a minor inconvenience defined, for me at least, largely by the fear of pouring boiling water directly into the coffee maker. We'll have forgotten this in a week. We shouldn't, not when thousands of First Nations people in Canada have no access to clean drinking water, or any water at all, really. At last count, 91 bands across Canada were under boil- water advisories, including six in Manitoba - Fox Lake, God's Lake, Lake Manitoba, Pauingassi, Pinaymootang and Wuskwi Sipihk. The folks on those reserves, mostly, have indoor plumbing. Their water- treatment plants just don't work properly, so they can't drink from the tap. There's a whole additional batch of First Nations homes, hundreds of them, especially in the Island Lake area, that have no indoor plumbing. People collect big pails and drive to communal water pumps, which freeze into ice sculptures in the winter. Or they might get a water delivery to a big plastic barrel out back. They have no indoor showers or toilets, using slop pails in winter and the outhouse in summer. During flu season, it's difficult to wash hands, so diseases such as H1N1 spread, especially to elders. It's hard to keep houses clean, when scrubbing the tub or mopping the floor means a trek to the pump that might take an hour. There's little point in having a washing machine, so laundry is done irregularly at communal machines down at the band office or school. You drink a Coke instead of a glass of water. You learn to line the slop pail with a shopping bag for less- gross disposal. It's a problem made more baffling by Ottawa's inability to just fix it. Money has flowed in recent federal budgets, but slowly. In Wasagamack First Nation, for example, at last check about 500 homes still needed retrofitting. At the current funding pace, it will take another five years to get plumbing for everyone. If five years sounds like a long time to spend in lineups for bottled water, try 18. Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, just on the other side of the border in Ontario, has been under a boil- water advisory for that long. They can't get a water- treatment plant built because they're an island with no all- weather road access. They're an island because of a diversion channel built a century ago to funnel murky water away from an aqueduct. The aqueduct was built to pipe Shoal Lake's water to Winnipeg, allowing the city to grow and thrive. Thus ends our right to complain for one second about Starbucks being closed for a day or two. maryagnes. welch@ freepress. mb. ca MARY AGNES WELCH THE boil- water advisory made national news Tuesday night, but not everyone in Winnipeg got the message in a timely manner. A resident at Sturgeon Creek II retirement home said she only learned about the advisory when her granddaughter called her Tuesday evening. The woman, who didn't want to be identified, said she didn't receive any information from staff there not to drink tap water. The only indication she got from them that there was a problem was during lunch Wednesday in the dining room. " They removed the water pitcher from the table and replaced it with bottled water," she said. A senior who lives across the Assiniboine River from her said staff at the Wellington were " super" about informing residents about the problem. " They're just doing a splendid job," said Doris Woodward, a resident in the Charleswood assisted- living facility. Residents had pamphlets dropped off at their suites Tuesday night and a residents meeting was held Wednesday morning to talk about the advisory and how it is being handled. " The people with dementia - they were speaking to them individually," Woodward said. In a nursing home in Wolseley Wednesday, residents could freely get water from the taps without any signs reminding them not to drink it. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority wouldn't comment on the specifics of how retirement homes and seniors facilities should respond when a boil- water advisory is issued. Most care home operators wouldn't comment, either. One referred media inquiries to the WRHA. Others didn't respond at all. The regional marketing director for one company who did respond couldn't say how they informed residents about the advisory. " We did the posting and contacted all of our tenants," said Bruce Lillie with All Seniors Care Living Centres Inc. " We're taking the advisory very seriously, like anybody." The inconsistency in getting information out about the advisory wasn't limited to seniors homes. On Tuesday night, soon after Mayor Brian Bowman announced the boil- water advisory was in effect, signs were posted all over the indoor Subway Soccer South complex at the University of Manitoba. The complex is run by the Winnipeg Soccer Federation, which did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. On the other side of the city, at the Seven Oaks Soccer- Plex Tuesday night, players were seen filling water bottles from drinking fountains. Staff at the complex later posted signs about the advisory in washrooms and at the drinking fountains, said Martino Vergata, the vice- president of sports at the Garden City Community Centre. He said the centre has a canteen that sells bottled water. On Wednesday morning, community centres received a notice from the General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres about the advisory, Vergata said. After learning city water test results came back negative for contamination Wednesday, he expects the advisory will be lifted soon. " It's better to be safe and more cautious." - Carol Sanders SENIORS HOMES: Mixed experiences Our inconvenience, their way of life JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeggers have been faced with the minor inconvenience of scrambling to find water during the city's boil- water advisory. Try living on a First Nation where never having clean, drinkable water in the taps is a way of life. A_ 05_ Jan- 29- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A5 1/ 28/ 15 9: 55: 02 PM ;