More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The Canadian Armed Forces says its members have arrived in Nunavut's capital to assist with the city's ongoing water emergency.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Friday that he had spoken with Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq and the military would be deployed to Iqaluit to co-ordinate and deliver clean drinking water.
Late Saturday, the military tweeted that there are over 20 Canadian Armed Forces members in Iqaluit setting up deployable equipment for reverse osmosis water purification.
Maj. Susan Magill, a public information officer for Joint Task Force North, said one purification unit arrived in Iqaluit in a military jet on Saturday and a second was on its way Sunday.
"It's as big as a sea can and it comes loaded and ready to go on a truck. So when the aircraft opens up, the truck rolls out," Magill said of the purification units during an interview Sunday in Iqaluit.
"We're still in the process of trying to find a good site to put these two units on."
Iqaluit's 8,000 residents haven't been able to consume tap water for nearly two weeks after fuel was found in samples.
Residents have been collecting water from the city's Sylvia Grinnell River and picking up free bottled water from distribution sites, and local officials say they're continuing efforts to identify the source of the contamination.
Magill said Canada's water purification units have been used in the past in warm climates like Haiti and the Philippines, so running them in Iqaluit in late October will be a new experience for the team.
"It's definitely going to be a challenge, but the team is up here for precisely that," Magill said, noting that three members of the group are already based in the city.
The plan, she said, is for purified water to be stored in large bladders, and then the city will collect it in trucks for distribution. She said that at 8 degrees Celsius, one of the units can purify 5,000 litres per hour if the water is passed through the system once, or half that much if it's put through the unit twice.
Testing will determine how much purification the water will need, and Magill said it could take a few days or a week before the units are ready to produce water for consumption.
She said the deployment is scheduled to last until Nov. 17, at which time it will be reassessed.
In a news release Sunday, the city said the investigation into the cause of the tainted water has pointed to potential hydrocarbon contamination in the soil or ground water outside the municipal treatment plant, which it said may have leached into a storage tank.
"The in-ground tank containing the high concentrations of contaminants in the Water Treatment Plant has been isolated, pumped out for remediation and has undergone cleaning," the release stated.
"The affected tank has been successfully bypassed and water continues to be treated and sent out to the City's distribution system."
That system has been flushed out, but the city said it will need to be done again and an order not to consume the water remains in place.
Amy Elgersma, the city's chief administrative officer, said last week that an assessment found "no obvious cracks" in the contaminated tank.
The territory's chief public health officer, Dr. Michael Patterson, told a news conference Friday that residents may still smell fuel in their water even though the city has bypassed the contaminated tank.
Patterson has said the health risks to residents who drank the city's tap water are very low.
Sunday's news release from the city noted that an environmental site assessment is underway where contractors will drill for soil and water samples around the treatment plant. It said the next steps are dependent on the test results.
"We will take direction from our experts on actions required to remediate the site," the release stated.
It also noted the city installed a "real time water monitoring station focusing detecting and trending hydrocarbons" on Sunday.
It said the monitoring station "will allow the city to obtain real-time information on hydrocarbon levels."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2021.
-- By Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.
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A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
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The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.