The Rocky Path to Source Water Protection: A Cross-Case Analysis of Drinking Water Crises in Small Communities in Canada

Abstract

Source water protection (SWP) is increasingly seen as effective in reducing the incidence and extent of drinking water crises, yet its facilitation requires certain measures. Canada has one of the most decentralized water governance systems in the world. We sought to understand the experience and impacts of drinking water crises at community and government levels in a decentralized context: the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador through cross-case analysis. We selected our three study communities through a database of media reports in 2014 followed by invitations to community leaders. We used descriptive and qualitative methods, specifically structured interview schedules with both closed-and open-ended questions, and interviewed four community leaders and three provincial government officials. We used NVivo in data analysis, especially in the identification of themes. While government officials defined water crises largely in terms of SWP, this was not the same for communities, whose concern was mainly water access, specifically water shortages. Thus, while the prioritizing of SWP can be useful, the current focus on SWP has the potential to overlook aspects of water security, particularly in some rural and Indigenous communities in Canada. If we envision water security as a ladder representing a hierarchy of needs, some communities are too far down on the ladder to operationalize SWP because their water problems are more extreme.

Source Water Protection Planning for Ontario First Nations Communities: Case Studies Identifying Challenges and Outcomes

“…These challenges are noted in Indigenous, remote and small communities, in which capacity remains a significant challenge [46,47]. Technical documents related to emergency plans, capital projects and other forms of land use and environmental planning consider water as part of the planning process.…”

Shifting the Framework of Canadian Water Governance through Indigenous Research Methods: Acknowledging the Past with an Eye on the Future

“…In many cases, federal or provincial governance bodies have delegated water management responsibility to communities, based on the premise that local communities are well positioned to understand and address local water management challenges. Yet in this case, devolution of management authority has occurred as an unfunded mandate, since many local communities lack the financial and technical resources, as well as the governance capacity required to fully provide community water needs [7,8,[15][16][17].…”

Gender and water insecurity in a subarctic Indigenous community

“…The installation of the PWDU in 2003 about 1.5 km from the furthest house did not result in community water security; instead, the unit was not properly scaled and was too expensive for the community to operate (Hanrahan et al ). Source water protection is limited and the community's water problems seem intractable in the current policy framework which downloads responsibilities and costs to local governments with few resources (Hanrahan and Dosu ). The access measure guidelines of the World Health Organization (Bartram and Howard ) place the community at a “very high” level of health concern (Mercer and Hanrahan ).…”

“…Our experience with Black Tickle reinforced our conclusion that case studies can facilitate in‐depth analysis of the factors shaping water security and help advance an action‐oriented research agenda (Brydon‐Miller et al ) and the need for a materialist approach, working with the community. This long‐term research partnership has led and contributed to publications on improving water access (Hanrahan ), responding to water crises (Hanrahan and Dosu ), the health effects of and coping strategies for water insecurity (Hanrahan ; Hanrahan et al ; Sarkar et al ; Hanrahan et al ), the process of community‐based research (Hanrahan ), Southern Inuit history (Hanrahan ), nutrition and social change (Hanrahan ), and Southern Inuit health concepts (Hanrahan ). A common theme underpinning much of this research is that gender plays a critical role related to differing impacts on mental and physical health, as well as broader impacts on community sustainability.…”

“…Fragmentation—the involvement of multiple institutions in drinking water management—is one of the key drivers of water insecurity in Canada (Norman et al ; Mercer and Hanrahan ). Although decentralization might be effective in some parts of Canada, it results in the downloading of responsibilities and costs by senior governments to junior governments which lack the necessary human, technical, and financial resources (Bakker and Cook ; Mercer and Hanrahan ; Hanrahan and Dosu ). Likewise, service delivery and monitoring are devolved to municipal governments (Robins ; Baker and Cook 2011), with their powers defined by provincial governments (Timmer et al ).…”