Disagreements between city, territory slowed Iqaluit water crisis response: report

A bypass system that allowed people in Iqaluit to drink the city's tap water again after it was contaminated with fuel could have come online earlier, according to a report from a third-party review of the 2021 water crisis. 

The report prepared by Toronto-based consulting firm DPRA for Nunavut's Department of Community and Government Services (CGS) details how disagreements between the city and territorial government affected the response to the crisis. The report was issued in May and recently provided to CBC News by CGS.

City residents went nearly two months without clean tap water after hydrocarbons were detected in the city's water supply in October 2021 and ultimately traced to the water treatment plant. A "do not consume" order from territorial health officials was ultimately lifted that December.

The consultant's report says the City of Iqaluit commissioned its own design for a system that would bypass the contaminated water treatment plant after rejecting a design from CGS. 

"Had the City and CGS been able to coordinate earlier on bypass design specifications, it is possible that construction on the bypass could have been underway in early November [2021]," the report reads. 

The report says the city commissioned its own design "to meet certain technical specifications."

"The City only appears to have evaluated the bypass design commissioned by CGS after [the Department of Health] mandated the bypass installation as a prerequisite to lifting the Do Not Consume advisory," the report states. 

At a November 2021 meeting, city officials expressed concerns with the CGS design, including around pressure and flow-related risk and the potential for long-term damage to the city's piped infrastructure because of sediment. 

"A second bypass design might have been unnecessary had the City granted CGS full access to the Iqaluit [water treatment plant]; or had the City conveyed its preferred bypass specifications to CGS earlier in the process," the report says. 

The bypass system came online in January 2022 and was used until earlier this year. 

The report also says CGS spent a total of about $9 million on the water crisis, with $6.9 million going toward bottled water alone. 

Between October and December 2021, more than 1.5 million litres of bottled water were procured and shipped to Iqaluit on 39 chartered flights. 

The report also says CGS received a mobile water treatment plant that was purpose-built for the North prior to the water emergency, but it arrived damaged, was not properly winterized and was missing a generator. 

CGS was also not provided with an operator's manual for the mobile plant and CGS staff "lacked the specialist knowledge needed to overcome these challenges without expert assistance," the report states.