Current Projects
The SDWF is constantly challenged by a great need for financial support, all donations go 100% to our various projects as all administration and operating expenses are carried out by our strong network of volunteers. Following is a summary of present projects awaiting funding. We invite you to request more detailed information and look forward to working with you. Individual memberships and/or donations will also go towards funding these projects.
Education
Our school programs Operation Water Drop (OWD), Operation Water Pollution (OWP) and Operation Water Biology (OWB) are available on a cost recovery basis nationally, the elementary program of OWD is $70 and each High School Operation Water Drop kit, Operation Water Pollution kit or Operation Water Biology kit is $140. All other school programs are available free of charge from our website. We constantly have a list of teachers across the country requesting our programs and asking for sponsors to make them available. We welcome sponsorships of all sizes for kits to be sent to schools across the country, the individual/foundation/company that sponsors the kits can even specify what types of kits are to be sent and where they are to be sent (by geographic location or by specific schools), contact us (306-934-0389 or info@safewater.org) for more information! Operation Water Spirit (OWS), Operation Water Flow (OWF), Operation Water Health (OWH) and Operation Community Water Footprint (OCWF) are all educational programs that are available free of charge on our website. All of our school programs are endorsed by the Canadian Teachers' Federation as programs of Excellence in Environmental Education, and have been since 2002.
Research & Development
To give you an idea of the need for SDWF R&D, SDWF scientists have recently been asked to advise on water treatment processes in India and Ghana, where all drinking water must meet World Health Organization (WHO) regulations. Ironically, Canada's drinking water guidelines do not meet WHO regulations and some provinces' provincial guidelines, such as Saskatchewan's, are even more lax than our national guidelines. We are, in fact, the only developed country to not have national regulations for drinking water quality. What is more, Canada is the only developed country to repeatedly vote NO at United Nations that water is not a basic human right!
Many non-Aboriginal rural communities are now filling jugs of truly safe drinking water (rather than perceived safe drinking water) from the five FN communities where we have now been successful in providing them with safe drinking water. The reason why FN communities are receiving media attention for unsafe drinking water is because they have a national voice. Rural Canadians are actually tomorrow's Indians (they just don't know it yet)!
Development of the Community Framework for Safe Drinking Water
The Need
1. Canada is the only developed country which does not have national drinking water regulations.
2. Canada’s drinking water guidelines are more lax than World Health Organization (WHO) water quality standards.
3. Health Canada has a responsibility to ensure safe drinking water is accessible to all Canadians. Yet they only test for a select few parameters of the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality, giving Canadians the perception that they have access to safe drinking water.
4. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) is ultimately responsible for water quality on reserves for all of Canada’s First Nations people, yet it does not have access to treated water quality analyses undertaken by Health Canada, nor does INAC analyze source waters. Therefore, INAC is not capable of determining if any FN water treatment plants, or water treatment processes, are actually capable of producing safe drinking water.
5. Many rural communities have source waters as challenging as their First Nation neighbours. However, rural communities are under provincial jurisdiction for water quality, which in some Canadian provinces are more lax than the national Canadian guidelines.
6. Often, rural community leaders are able to provide upgrades, or build new water treatment plants, with federal and provincial funding partnerships such as Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD). Unfortunately, programs such as WD do not ensure that the projects they fund are capable of producing safe drinking water or even capable of meeting Canadian or provincial drinking water guidelines, thereby giving rural communities a false security that they are providing their citizens with safe drinking water.
7. Both rural and First Nation communities are at severe risk of health issues resulting from unsafe drinking water because (in the estimation of SDWF scientists) more than 90% of water treatment plants in these communities are incapable of producing safe drinking water.
8. The SDWF has the scientific expertise to offer rural and First Nation leaders the resources necessary to determine and select appropriate water treatment systems capable of producing drinking water which is superior to the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality and even meets or exceeds WHO standards.
9. Engineers’ code of ethics includes “protection of public health”. While all engineers claim adherence to this code, SDWF has not witnessed any affirmative action in this regard.
10. Typically, rural and FN communities start with some of the most challenging source waters in the world. Add to this the fact that they have virtually no knowledge base or any resources to effectively produce safe drinking water. Compared to cities that start with far superior source waters, have many professional engineers and scientists available, and who then take an average of 16 hours to adequately treat their water, rural and FN communities have no resources and their treatment time is often just minutes!
Objectives
1. To provide Community leaders with a Framework including recommendations and directions with a checklist to establish required analyses of both source and treated water supplies.
2. To provide options for engineers and/or community leaders to submit to SDWF the suggested water treatment process for SDWF scientists to review and determine reality/potential of meeting objectives.
3. To scientifically prove and recommend different water treatment processes that will produce safe drinking water based on source water quality.
4. By providing direction for follow-up analyses of treated water supplies, enable community leaders to demand and determine ongoing water quality and accountability from engineers, or those contracted to provide their community with safe drinking water.
5. To provide engineers with the ability to measure and determine potential success of various water treatment techniques.
Therefore, SDWF Community Framework of recommendations regarding how to effectively produce safe drinking water will include:
1. Guidelines for communities, offering parameters to be tested on both raw and treated water.
2. Checklists for communities to follow
3. Templates of statements to be included in contracts
4. Definitions of issues that must be resolved in the respective water treatment processes.
5. Definitions of health and safety issues.
6. Definitions of what needs to be achieved in treated water, for example, turbidity levels.
7. Definitions of the necessary analysis of source, treated and ongoing water quality.
Deliverables
• Communities who participate in the SDWF Community Framework for Safe Drinking Water and implement SDWF recommendations will be able to exceed the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water and meet or exceed the most stringent of international water quality standards.
• Community leaders who implement SDWF Community Framework for Safe Drinking Water recommendations may be considered as accountable as possible to their respective citizens
• Engineers who implement SDWF Community Framework for Safe Drinking Water recommendations will be able to operate in accordance with their code of ethics to protect human health.
• Information submitted on community checklists will determine the extent of the issues and needs to be met in each community. When communities decline to follow SDWF recommendations, the SDWF will still have access to community data and/or analyses to hold Health Canada and/or INAC and provincial and municipal agencies accountable for the quality of the community’s drinking water.
In addition, there are increasing concerns regarding the overall quality of the produced water leading many water producers to voluntarily introduce minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, to the treated water. Also, the outside regulatory view has been increasing concerns about the proliferation of pathogenic organisms including Mycobacterium and Legionella, which are biofilm forming bacteria proliferating in distribution systems with biologically unstable treated water. Selected water treatment processes will, therefore, also impact on distribution system problems that should be addressed by an assessment of suitable water treatment processes.
Advanced Aboriginal Water Treatment Team (AAWTT)
The AAWTT is a team of volunteer participants dedicated to the advancement of water treatment processes on Aboriginal reserves in Canada. Team members will help each other resolve water treatment problems by using advanced water treatment processes. The team is supported by one ground water laboratory located at George Gordon’s FN, Saskatchewan (almost completed), and one surface water laboratory (paid for by band funds) located at Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Alberta. At these two locations R&D into advanced water treatment processes is carried out on a daily basis. Both laboratories are integrated with the regular operation of advanced water treatment processes. Each plant will also become part of the bigger picture where improvements are being documented and shared with other participants.
The AAWTT and our community workshops advocate the Integrated Biological and Reverse Osmosis Membrane (IBROM) water treatment process or any other process which has equal effectiveness! The single most important aspect of producing safe drinking water is protection of source waters, and what one community discharges as wastewater becomes another community's source water. The IBROM system is unique in that:
- It produces drinking water of superior quality, exceeding U.S. and European regulations which meet WHO regulations
- It uses virtually no chemicals in the process, therefore being environmentally friendly for watershed protection
- It uses significantly less water in the treatment process, making less demands on a water as a resource
- Its RO membranes have far greater life span, significantly reducing operating costs
- It greatly reduces cost of labour
- It is as cost-effective as conventional systems
We presently have sponsorship from Alberta Ecotrust, Catherine Donnelly Foundation and Sapphire Group to deliver community workshops for FN communities in AB. A huge opportunity exists to sponsor workshops for Rural communities in any province. We estimate that each workshop in the prairie region will cost approx. $5,000 allowing for up to 20 delegates to attend with a free lunch. Workshops further afield would require additional travel costs for two facilitators.
Website
www.safewater.org presently receives over 150,000 visitors each month! We have received minimal sponsorship to translate some of our school programs into French and Cree, we would greatly appreciate being able to make our entire website bilingual and have all information available in both French and Cree.
For more information on any SDWF projects please e-mail Nicole Biederbeck at info@safewater.org
Thanks again for your interest.
Here are direct links to all SDWF projects:
Project Objectives
Fingerprinting Water
Development of Community Framework for Safe Drinking Water
Particle Removal
Dissolved Organics Material
Advanced Aboriginal Water Treatment Team
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