Decentralised Water Expert Report
Technical issues, community-level risk identification, and management recommendations
Grounded in input from 20 First Nations and 70+ practitioners, this Expert Report maps risk pathways in decentralized drinking water and wastewater—wells, truck-to-cistern, and onsite septic—using a multi-barrier/bowtie framework to show where hazards compound from source-to-tap and tap-to-source.
It documents jurisdictional and policy gaps (including largely unregulated trucked-water/cistern systems serving 15,000+ homes) and the high operational costs that drive cascading technical, management, and people-related risks.
The report delivers tiered, First Nations-led actions—immediate (build accurate inventories and risk profiles), intermediate (pilot funding and inspection/monitoring programs co-developed with Nations), and reform (long-term funding, enforceable standards, and integrated management of centralised and decentralised assets)—to protect public and environmental health and support self-determination.
View the full report 👉 here.
