INUVIK
Water bodies in the NWT, including around the Mackenzie Delta, are in reasonable shape, according to the latest results of community monitoring.

Erin Kelly, manager of watershed programs and partnerships, was the lead speaker at a presentation on community water quality monitoring at the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex March 26. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

Erin Kelly, the manager of watershed programs and partnerships, was the lead speaker at the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex March 26 during a presentation on community-based water quality monitoring under the NWT Water Stewardship Strategy.

In a two-hour presentation of the results and an ensuing discussion, Kelly said the results of sampling for the community-based program have remained consistent in the third year of the program.

Those results are also consistent with previous water testing over many years by various programs, she said.

The test results show that NWT rivers are always high in sediments and particulates, at a rate much greater than rivers to the south.

Using the national standards, NWT rivers always show an excess amount of some elements and chemicals, such as iron and aluminium, that are the two key components of soil.

Kelly said that illustrates the amount of suspended soil found in the NWT rivers and lakes, which is far in excess of the southern water bodies where the standards were developed. It's not a cause for particular concern, and illustrates the need for a "site-specific" standard to be created for Northern rivers and waters, she said.

There is nothing flawed with the national standards, she explained, but they simply are not applicable to NWT waters due to the amount of soil present, which is not a factor faced by southern rivers and lakes. At their best, Northern rivers would register on the high end of the scale for turbidity and particulates, Kelly said.

"It's a natural characteristic of our river, and the measurements are designed for cleaner, faster-flowing southern rivers," she said.

The soil levels in NWT rivers have remained steady over years of testing, Kelly said. Any temporary increases are directly attributable to rainfall events.

The particulates and sediments in the river are in a relatively inert form that won't be ingested by organisms at the lower ends of the food chain, and therefore won't be passed along, Kelly said.

If the levels remained consistently higher than normal for some time, that would be a cause for concern, she told the handful of spectators present for the meeting. That hasn't happened yet.

The Mackenzie Delta is a particularly important area to observe because deltas naturally attract concentrations of settling sediment.

The community-based monitoring program operates with locally trained people taking water samples and collecting data from other automated sampling systems attached to buoys that are anchored in the rivers. Those samples are collected monthly, Kelly said.

Overall, other than the high level of sediments, the quality of NWT waterways remains rather good, she told the audience. While she wouldn't recommend drinking untreated water, there are people who do so without major problems.

There were several questions from people in the audience, and concerns were expressed about the potential impact of pollution from the south. Of particular concern was the potential for contamination from disasters like the Obed Mine spill late last year.

Kelly said that has been a concern wherever she has made the presentations, and so far there is no clear-cut evidence of such contamination making its way to the North. The Mackenzie River, she said, is so large that it has a huge potential for diluting such contamination, and many of the Alberta rivers don't flow as directly into the Mackenzie as many people think.

One man, identified only as Eric, questioned the length of time it was taking to create trans-boundary agreements on watershed management for the Mackenzie.

"Twenty-five years ago I slammed my first on the table and said we needed these agreements, and we're still talking about them," he said. "Talk, talk, talk is all we do."

Kelly said the only agreement signed so far is with the Yukon Territory. Negotiations with Alberta and B.C. are continuing and showing signs of progress, she added.