Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) confirmed this week that they will support community members who are looking to be compensated as part of the First Nations Drinking Water Settlement.
The class action settlement argues that First Nations in Canada who were subject to a drinking water advisory that lasted at least one year between Nov. 20, 1995 and June 20, 2021 can apply to receive financial compensation.
On Sept. 26, SNEC informed the community that an attestation letter of support was signed by Chief Mark Hill stating that the Six Nations community had drinking water advisories in effect that proceed the claims start period (1995) and remain in effect to this day.
Six Nations Environmental Lead Rod Whitlow says that when Six Nations members are looking to apply in the class action settlement they will be able to attach the attestation letter in their individual application.
"We're hoping that this community wide blanket letter from chief and council will be sufficient enough for the claims settlement to properly assess and rightly assess any applications that come from people that live on Six Nations that have been dealing with water safety and security issues for generations upon generations."
Whitlow says that the government seemingly rejects Six Nations as an impacted First Nation because the Village of Ohsweken's residents are connected to the Six Nations Water Treatment Plant and, although they have experienced drinking water advisories in the past, those advisories had not exceeded one year. He says Six Nations continues to address that a vast majority of the community are not connected to the water treatment plant and instead rely on groundwater from wells on a day to day basis.
"There were certainly boil water advisories over the decades but they didn't ever exceed a one year threshold, which is a requirement through the settlement agreement. But what we had been advocating concurrently is for the vast majority of the community that relies on groundwater and they're on a well, they would actually meet the criteria," he said.
"So that's why it seems to be that even the government seem to want to dismiss Six Nations considerations for that very reason, not realizing that the vast majority of our community is not hooked up on the water treatment plant, we're not on the pipe distribution system. We still rely on groundwater," he added. "No matter how many times we have these discussions, it seems like we still have to drive home that message."
SNEC accepted Rod Whitlow's update on the drinking water settlement as information and say that council will be rolling out an awareness campaign on this issue and those looking to apply can receive the attestation letter from Six Nations Central Administration.
CJKS will be following this story and will provide a copy of the letter of support when it is received from SNEC.
For the full CJKS story listen below: