Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Cape Dorset (Mar 18/02) - Living under a state of emergency means making sacrifices.

After Jason Hennebury's small family of three shares the same bath water, for example, they use it to flush their toilet. Laundry, despite having a two-year old child, is out of the question.

"At first, a lot of people were upset because they didn't have information and didn't understand what was going on," said Hennebury.

"But it's not too bad. We have a bunch of those rubber totes and we shovel snow into them and melt it and use that," he said.

Hennebury and the other 1,200 residents of the hamlet of Cape Dorset were all asked to conserve water after a state of emergency was declared March 9, when the community's water pipeline ruptured in 12 places.

When the heating system protecting the pipeline malfunctioned, the line froze, breaking at the joints, and water could no longer be pumped from the community's lake supply to its 500,000-litre storage tank.

"It seems that everything that can go wrong is going wrong, but we have to keep our spirits up and hope our luck turns good," said the hamlet's senior administrator, Art Stewart.

Residents were immediately asked to watch their water consumption.

"We declared a local state of emergency and people understand. They're reacting very well to this," Stewart said. "We're all a little bit anxious."

Emergency measures officials were contacted Sunday morning and the focus turned to figuring out how long the water left in the storage tank would last.

Water delivery became available only when residents phoned the hamlet to request a refill. Single people and couples without children received 200-litre deliveries. Families got 300 litres per call.

With the reservoir empty by Friday, water trucks drove to a different lake to fill up. Employees are chlorinating the water in the truck, but residents are advised to boil the water before drinking it.

Meanwhile, blocks of ice -- also to be boiled before consumption -- are being cut from the ice at the regular lake.

Stewart said the conservation order would last until at least the middle of this week, when repairs to the line are expected to be completed.

A Hercules cargo aircraft flew into the hamlet over the weekend with 1,300 metres of insulated plastic pipe.

Timoon Toonoo, the regional superintendent for the Department of Community Government and Transportation and an EMO official, said the agencies were meeting with the hamlet twice a day and hitting the airwaves on the community radio station to keep residents informed of the situation.

While the stores and the hamlet office remain open, both schools and the territorial government building remain closed until the pipeline is repaired and water is flowing.