NESKANTAGA FIRST NATION, ONT. — Every other day, Derek Moonias drives 15 minutes to the airport in Neskantaga First Nation and fills his pickup truck with cases of bottled water flown in on the dime of the federal government. The community some 450 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ont.
– accessible only by air and a winter ice road – has the longest boil-water advisory in the country at 29 years and growing. Many in the community have never lived at a time when the water coming out of the taps was declared suitable to drink. On this morning, Moonias, the water distribution co-ordinator, is tired.
A young mother called him overnight looking for clean water to make a bottle for her baby. He dug some up from his secret cache kept just for such occasions and rushed it over. "It's very sad, man," he says.
"It's depressing." Moonias picks up about 95 cases a flight and serves 84 homes. In addition to that, half a planeload of clean water is needed for the community centre, the police and nursing stations, the band office and the school.
It's nowhere near enough, he says. After the airport, Moonias puts out a call to residents' walkie-talkies that bottled water is available at the community centre. Residents soon converge to grab the cases as he keeps track of his clients.
"Water is my entire life right now," he says as he wipes his brow and lets out a deep sigh. "The kids are my priority along with the Elders and medical clients." Moonias has plenty of first-hand experience w.
