Fire forces Puvirnituq to declare state of emergency as water shortage continues

By Antoni Nerestant

As residents of Puvirnituq, Que., continue to struggle with a worsening water shortage, a fire has prompted the small village in Nunavik to declare a state of emergency.

The fire, which began on Saturday at about 3 p.m., destroyed a house in the northern Quebec village of 2,100 people.

There were no injuries, according to a statement from Lucy Qalingo, Puvirnituq’s mayor. She said the fire was extinguished at about midnight, with blizzard conditions, strong winds and the very limited water supply hampering the firefighting efforts.

The village council declared a state of emergency on Saturday evening.

Access to water has been limited since a pipe that connects the pump station to the treatment plant froze in mid-March. That has forced the village to drive farther out of town to truck in water and have it manually chlorinated, slowing delivery of water.

Difficult weather conditions, including slushy roads and a series of blizzards, have exacerbated the crisis.

In recent days, water shortages at the local health centre — the Inuulitsivik Health Centre — have led to some patients being flown south for care, and Nunavik’s chief public health officer has warned that illnesses like gastroenteritis (stomach flu) could spread rapidly as the water shortage impacts access to sanitation.

In a brief statement, a spokesperson for the Inuulitsivik Health Centre said a total of 18 people from either the hospital or a care facility for seniors have been flown south so far.

The declaration of a state of emergency gives Puvirnituq’s mayor some additional powers — including to requisition private property to address the emergency and allowing her to order an evacuation — but Qalingo said she is also hoping it will be a “wake-up call” for the federal and Quebec governments.

“The issue that we’ve been facing is not something new. It recurs every year, like three times a year. This is why we wanted to declare, so the government will know and get the feeling what goes on in our communities,” she told CBC in an interview on Sunday.

“There are homes, their toilets are filled with feces because we don’t have any running water. And for those who are less fortunate, they’re thirsty.”

Qalingo said she is grateful for the help the community has received so far to help with the water shortage.

The Kativik Regional Government in Nunavik has sent in a team that is working to build a temporary replacement water pipe, as well as heavy equipment operators who can take on shifts driving water and sewage trucks.

The neighbouring village of Inukjuak has also offered to send in heavy equipment operators, the mayor said, and the Quebec government has sent bottled water for residents.

Qalingo said she hopes the frozen pipeline can soon be thawed and that the Kativik Regional Government’s temporary pipeline for Puvirnituq will be operating soon.

In the meantime, she said, heavy machinery operators in the community are working as hard as they can to get enough water into the village, but shortages will likely continue until the snow melts and the water trucks can make deliveries more quickly.

‘We’ve been patient for too long’

Qalingo said Nunavik communities like Puvirnituq will continue to struggle with their access to water unless federal and provincial governments invest more in infrastructure in the region.

“We’ve used up all of our resources already. We’ve tried to ask the government to give us proper adequate funding to have good filtered water in our communities … but the money that is given to us is not enough for Nunavik as a region,” she said.

Qalingo said that to ensure this didn’t happen again, her community would need more money for heavy machinery, as well as funding for underground water pipes, as she believes trucked water is no longer adequate to serve the village’s needs.

“We’ve been patient for too long, trying to wait for the governments to notice what kind of situation we go through. Water isn’t just water, water is life.”

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Mandy Gull-Masty, Canada’s newly sworn-in Indigenous services minister, said that “my heart goes out to the community members in Puvirnituq.”

“I have reached out to my provincial counterpart and community leadership to make sure they have what they need and reiterate my support,” she said. “At all levels of government, we have to work together to use our tools and resources to make sure communities have access to essential services. We will get through this together.”

In an interview with CBC News, Ian Lafrenière — the provincial minister responsible for relations with the First Nations and the Inuit — said the Quebec government had been waiting to get an update on the situation from local authorities in Nunavik for a few weeks.

He said Quebec received a request to help with the water crisis on Wednesday.

This weekend, Lafrenière said, the province delivered about 60,000 litres of water to Puvirnituq.

When asked about statements by Qalingo that she felt her community had been forgotten, he said he empathized with the mayor given how the situation has unravelled in her community.

“Imagine, you’ve been lacking for the past weeks, you got a fire that just took place and the weather has been horrible,” the minister said.

He said the priority now is to do what is necessary to stabilize the situation. Afterwards, he said, the province will meet with local governments to determine what should be done to ensure a situation like this never happens again.

‘There’s no plan’

Dr. Marie-Faye Galarneau, who’s worked as a family doctor in the region for five years, resigned two weeks ago due to the deteriorating health-care conditions there.

On Sunday, she said she’s angered by the situation playing out in Puvirnituq, describing it as “beyond comprehension.”

“People are deprived of water and their toilets are full for two weeks to one month now, and there’s no plan, except sending bottles of water,” Galarneau said.

In a statement to Radio-Canada, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services (NRBHSS) said the state of emergency has no “direct additional impact” on its operations.

“The NRBHSS is fully mobilized for civil security co-ordination efforts and is providing support to the Inuulitsivik Health Centre,” the statement reads.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Norman Wells, N.W.T. facing ‘impossible’ costs as fuel prices skyrocket: mayor, CBC News

Norway: Smoke from Canadian wildfires forecast to reach Norway, The Associated Press

Russia: New NOAA report finds vast Siberian wildfires linked to Arctic warming, The Associated Press

United States: Wildfires in Anchorage? Climate change sparks disaster fears, The Associated Press