By Bryan Eneas

Idle No More presents findings in Prince Albert

Sep 23, 2016 | 7:44 AM

Concerned residents from Prince Albert and surrounding area, had a chance to hear results from an independent analysis of water collected from the North Saskatchewan River.

Idle No More’s independent water assessment results were made available to the public on September 2. Those results were broken down and explained to Prince Albert residents in a presentation hosted at the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library by Ricardo Segovia, a hydrogeologist from Vancouver.

The city of Prince Albert recently announced intakes to the North Saskatchewan River have been turned on, a move which gave rise to questions regarding water safety. Although officials will continuously monitor the water, Segovia suggested back up measures.  

“I would put a carbon filter on my showerhead and also where I’m going to be taking my drinking water,” Segovia said. “Because if that stuff gets on your skin, because it’s an organic contaminant, it also absorbs in your skin.”

Prince Albert residents were not alone. Rodney Sanderson from James Smith Cree Nation was also in attendance, making sure his community was represented.

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“This is not a problem that is going to go away overnight. We have to start the process now of cleaning that river and mitigate the damage,” Sanderson said.

James Smith has been dealing with oil flowing through its community since August 26. Recently, a tar like substance was found on the shores of the Saskatchewan River, which Segovia said is dangerous to wildlife along the river banks.

According to the hydro specialist, if there are no adequate clean-up efforts, the tar substance can stick around for years.

“In all other oil spills we’ve seen in the world you have tar bubbles appearing all the time,” Segovia said.

The first round of independent testing has been completed, but more are planned for the future. Tests must be done on the North Saskatchewan River upstream from the location of the spill to compare results before and after the incident.

“(Before the first tests) we still didn’t know exactly where the spill was. But now we can get up there and do some baseline, if you want to call it that because the rivers already contaminated, we’ll know the difference before and after the spill,” Segovia said adding this spill may take years to clean up.

“It depends when they start cleaning or if they start cleaning.”

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On twitter: @BryanEneas