The First Nation that has been the source of Winnipeg's water for more than a century is suing the city and federal government, saying it's never been compensated for the harms suffered as a result of the city's water diversion system. When it was build in 1915, Winnipeg's aqueduct left Shoal Lake 40 isolated on a man-made island that was only accessible by ice road in the winter or barge in the summer. 

Today, Northwest Angle No. 33's Angle Inlet community site held celebrations following the completion of a new water treatment plant for Angle Inlet. Chief Darlene Comegan and the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services, announced today that with the water treatment plant complete, the community lifted three long-term drinking water advisories. The new centralized water treatment plant will provide reliable access to safe and clean drinking water for 100 residents. The water treatment plant meets the community's current needs and has the capacity to support future population growth over the next 20 years.

A First Nation on Vancouver Island has been legally barred from accessing one of its primary traditional food sources for the past 25 years, one of 154 shellfish harvesting sites closed by federal law in B.C. due to poor water quality. Some of those sites may be safe at times, a recent audit concluded, but they cannot be reopened because the federal agency in charge of testing those waters is understaffed. As a result, it devotes the majority of its limited resources to commercial harvesting areas. Shellfish beds First Nations have relied on for as long as their people have existed haven’t been given such high priority.

The Tsawout First Nation, located 20 kilometres north of Victoria, B.C., has declared an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) for 155 kilometres of ocean in its traditional waters. The area will be called QEN'T Marine Protected Area. QEN'T — pronounced "qwant" — means "to be looking after," "caring for," or "protecting something or someone" in SENĆOŦEN.

A new copper plaque on the boulevard along Broadway at Donald Street aims to educate Winnipeggers about the source of their drinking water and the community surrounding it — Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. "For years Winnipeg members, their citizens, were able to … turn on their tap," said Chief Kevin Redsky of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation at the unveiling of the plaque on Friday.  The plaque pays tribute to Shoal Lake as the source of city water since 1919, when the Winnipeg aqueduct was completed. It explains how the project impacted the First Nation community and its relationship with water. "The 24-year boil water advisory, the sickness created bathing our own children, not being able to drink safe water," Redsky said.

A local First Nation says it's "disappointed" Teck Coal is seeking to reduce the $16 million in fines it was assessed by the B.C. Ministry of Environment in January for polluting waterways in B.C.'s East Kootenay. In January, the province imposed three administrative penalties on Teck Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Teck Resources, citing the company's failure to have water treatment facilities ready by a required date.

After decades of seeing their lands sold off by the province and exploited by resource companies, Blueberry River First Nations won a landmark case in 2021. A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the province had breached the nation’s treaty rights by allowing so much disturbance it was impossible for the community to maintain its way of life. That ruling led to an agreement with the province in January that gives Blueberry River the power to determine where and how new development proceeds. The implications go far beyond Treaty 8 territory. The nation sits on what researchers call a “carbon bomb” — that, if fully tapped, would become Canada’s largest source of greenhouse gasses and among the largest in the world.

Darryle Sinclair is one of many evacuees from Peguis First Nation who could be stuck without homes for years while plans for future home builds and flood mitigation efforts continue. "We have to move and relocate," Sinclair said. "For a replacement home, we have to wait until everything's ready and gets back to normal. It's tough." But as of now, he doesn't know when that will be.

A northern Ontario First Nation that has lived under a boil-water advisory for nearly three decades has hired an outside consultant to find out once and for all what ails the community's water system. Neskantaga First Nation, roughly 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., is marking a grim milestone this month — 28 years under a boil water advisory, longer than any other First Nation.

Leaders from an Oji-Cree First Nation in Treaty 9 in Ontario say they want the Canadian government to take action to properly compensate all their community members enduring a long-term boil-water advisory, after learning most of them won't be eligible for a class action settlement. In December 2021, Canada's Federal Court and Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench jointly approved an $8-billion settlement for First Nations living under drinking-water advisories lasting longer than one year.

The First Nations Drinking Water Settlement provides compensation for First Nations impacted by long-term drinking water advisories that lasted continuously for at least one year between November 20, 1995 and June 20, 2021. Compensation is available for individuals and includes additional compensation for health harms (Specified Injuries) sustained by those following drinking water advisories. Personal representatives can claim on behalf of eligible minors, those with mental incapacity (under disability) and those who passed away on or after November 20, 2017. The deadline for individuals to submit a claim is March 7, 2023.

The Katzie First Nation is suing B.C. Hydro and the province for allegedly breaching legal commitments to mitigate damage caused by the Alouette hydroelectric dam. In a news release, Chief Grace George said the Alouette watershed, about 50 kilometres east of Vancouver on the north side of the Fraser Valley, is an area that's been "significant to Katzie First Nation members ... since time immemorial."

The Prairie Blood coulee winds through a property on the Kainai Nation, also known as the Blood Tribe, in southern Alberta. On a warm fall day, about a dozen people haul willows, mulch, dirt and water to several spots along a dry creek bed. Some pound large posts into the ground. Technicians from Blood Tribe and volunteers from local environmental groups are building five beaver dam analogs, which mimic a natural logjam. They hope to restore the stream flow to help the landowner care for his animals and have more water for wildlife as the area experiences a decade-long drought.

The First Nation has long been among the most vocal critics of plans to build a proposed road that would connect the Ring of Fire mineral deposit to the highway networks and manufacturing might of Ontario’s south. Now, they’re working to start a sturgeon stewardship program in an effort to protect the fish from proposed development. Even with the most optimistic of estimates, shovels for the proposed Ring of Fire project are years away from going into the ground, but people in Neskantaga First Nation feel a growing sense of urgency.

Members of the Cowichan Tribes First Nation on Vancouver Island are relieved to finally have drinkable water coming from their taps, though some members are still going without. Clean water is a necessity that many in Canada take for granted, but for 20 households on Indian Road in the First Nation on southern Vancouver Island, it's only recently become accessible.

A First Nation is working alongside a B.C. tech company to learn more about how climate change is affecting the waters it harvests food from. In an effort to preserve and even build up capacity for seafood harvesting, the T'Sou-ke First Nation on southern Vancouver Island turned to Victoria-based MarineLabs, which collects real-time data about the ocean, about 18 months ago to better understand what's going on in the Sooke Basin and other areas it uses.

Seven homes on the Muscowpetung Saulteaux Nation, approximately 65 kilometres northeast of Regina, were recently evacuated after floodwater from a nearby stream moved in earlier this week. It came after over 100 millimetres of rain fell in the area late Monday and through the day Tuesday. Jim Pratt, an emergency coordinator for the First Nation, told CBC the heavy rain filled the stream with water. When it began backing up at culverts running underneath Township Road 210 — a gravel road upstream from Muscowpetung — it started running over the road. The road and culverts eventually gave way.

People in Shoal Lake #40 First Nation are proud of what they've accomplished in recent years. The community in northwestern Ontario, near the Manitoba-Ontario border, built Freedom Road, connecting their once-isolated community to the Trans-Canada Highway, and completed a water-treatment plant that's helped them emerge from a 24-year boil-water advisory. This spring, the community was honoured by the Ontario Public Works Association with the Public Works Project of the Year for Small Municipalities and First Nations award for their new water-treatment plant.

Neskantaga First Nation on Sunday marked its 10,000th day under a drinking water advisory, the longest period of time any First Nation in Canada has lived under such an advisory. The community of around 300 people approximately 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont., has survived without safe, clean tap water for more than 27 years.

A northwestern Ontario First Nation that was under a boil-water advisory for 24 years has received this year's award for building the province's best small drinking water system. The Ontario Public Works Association presented the 2022 Public Works Project of the Year for Small Municipalities and First Nations award to Shoal Lake #40 First Nation, at a ceremony in Mississauga, Ont., Tuesday. The award recognizes the new Shoal Lake #40 water treatment plant as having uniquely provided opportunities for local procurement and employment.