There has been a lot of speculation in the community about the status of the water upgrade and crisis in Birchy Brook and we realize that we have been all over the place lately with reporting solutions and next steps. Please read all of this information carefully and realize that no one can provide citizens with the actual information in this community beside Chair Harold Legge and Chief Liz at this time. These are the only two in communication with Municipal Affairs and who are privy to information as it arises, changes and unfolds. There is no other person in the community who gets the on-going updated information or who has the autonomy to get detailed, timely answers, let alone reveal it to citizens. If you are not getting the information from them then you are not getting correct, updated information. Here is an outline of the water issue from the beginning to now. All along, Flat Bay Band Inc. has been talking to government about its uniqueness in serving as a native community without any supports from government, and discussing the urgent water issues. Since Harold became Chair of the water committee, he has been doing the same thing and turning over all the same stones and even some of his own. Last March, we struck a committee to start dealing with these issues and the former Minister Shea and Minister McGrath have been meeting and communicating with us. Because of their strong role in the water services Harold Legge and Elias White attended those meetings as informed voices about the status of the water. In May, when the water in Flat Bay West went down they came through really fast with special funding for us. This was through Municipal Affairs, it is a value of $150,000 but we had to have $23,000 upfront. The Flat Bay Band Inc. was dictated by Municipal Affairs to administer the funding for the upgrade in Flat Bay West for the Water committee. We did not ask for this or necessarily want it, but we accepted the responsibility knowing it would cause operational strain for us, but we knew the committee needed our support. They wanted the band to be the administrator of the project because we have all formalities in place which the water committee does not because it is an informal, volunteer committee. Formalities such as payroll, WHSC, CRA Registry of Deeds, external financial controls, insurance, liability, GST and tax remittances, experienced project management, etc, all of these formalities are what they were looking for to make them confident that this special funding project would be executed to success, because they already had concerns that this $150,000 might NOT be enough. Since then, we have been meeting all their requirements, and even had to get a loan under the band’s name for the $23,000. We were strongly informed all along by Municipal Affairs about two things in particular 1) Communication would be between them, Chief Liz and Harold only, and it is our responsibility to in turn inform the community. 2) They will dictate the entire project, not us – it is not a “make work project.” They order supplies, choose contractors, hire a project manager, say what can be done and what cannot be done, where the money gets spent, and where it cannot be spent, etc. The band is really only a venue to process all the paperwork. The project did not start yet, because we had to wait on their tenders to be processed. Right now, supplies are ordered and a contractor is close to being formalized. We suspect that the project should start in maybe 2 weeks. Please note this important fact. The band was not and will not be given a fund of $150,000. Municipal Affairs has that money and will only reimburse the band as we go along in the water upgrade project. All we have is our $23,000 of debt! And since then we have already had to pay for $915 in various application fees, the loan payment is already coming out, and almost $26,000 committed to supplies. There is no pot of money that the band gets to play with or access for this project. The band is not getting any liberties out of this, only community grief and operational strain. It is a strain on our debt ratio. We have a line of credit that we have to use to get through projects but it has to be renewed every year. We are not even sure if we will qualify for it now with having this $23,000 loan on us. If not, it will cause us a hard time with cash flow in our projects as we wait for reimbursements. This water crisis causes the band to lose hours that would rather be spent trying to write proposal and get money in. And with all the public exposure and current crisis, it is consuming the majority of our operational time. There are other costs like meetings, memos, it goes on and on. So point here, is that there is no fantasy pot of money that the band or water committee has control over or can tap into to solve this crisis. The next important point is that, the money that Municipal Affairs has for this project, is not ours to dictate. We cannot say how it can be spent. They dictate that and it is all connected with the Department of Environment etc. If we could just take the $150,000 and use it the way we want, then we would have had Flat Bay West AND Birchy Brook fixed up long by now and probably would even have money left over. Maybe it would not be to MA standards but we’d be no worst off then when we developed our own water systems, on our own, 30+ years ago. Last week or the week before when we alerted government about what was happening in Birchy Brook, Municipal Affairs (MA) called us with the suggestion to take some of the Flat Bay West money and allocate it to drill in Birchy Brook. Well we were over the moon excited that they were finally allowing us to do that because we had asked them that a ton of times in the past, to do that, but were never allowed. Actually in March, we proposed a budget of $170,000 to connect both wells but they came back with $150,00 and only for Flat Bay West and denied any of it to go to Birhcy Brook. We spoke with MA that week a few times on the phone and they were telling us it was not formal yet but there should be no issue with us drilling a new well now (since Birchy Brook was in crisis) and to use some of the $150,000 for Birchy Brook, as long as we know if we go over budget it would have been on us. They were just waiting on a report from us based on Water Specialist, Gerard Lee’s investigation of the well to go ahead and get formal approval for us from higher up in MA. We then sent out a memo to inform the community of the potential drill and what the fees increases would likely be once established. We had the local community centre booked for Aug. 8th for a community meeting and was about to post it in our last memo to say that we were going to call a public community meeting to talk about where to put the well and to confirm the increase in fees. Then, MA called and told us that they got a call from the community saying something about it only being the pump that was wrong with the well. This was the opposite from what we had told them because our last message to them was that we thought the well foundered. But we were waiting to get the report from Gerard Lee to tell them if the news was different or not. But we did not get to them before the community did. In knowing that they were the ones who ordered a relationship of no communication except between us and them, MA said they would not mind the call and wait for our report. But the very next day, when our memo was printed off and ready to go to the mail (to call the community meeting) - just before it went to mail, we got a long email from MA saying that they were not convinced that the well was gone and that we could not allocate funds from Flat Bay, could not afford the risk and for us to do further investigation on the well and seek other funding sources. Then we had to tear up the 174 memos and cancel the community centre booking. There was little time to say much more in the memo (as is detailed here) because it had to be redone, printed and gone to mail before the end of the work day. So we sent another message only stating that there will be no drilling after all and warning about how important it is that citizens leave communications between us and funders on projects, to give us the time and space to be effective. We had an issue like this in June when the Department of Environment came up to get a water sample and no one in Birchy Brook would give them a sample. We realize that the citizens probably thought they were doing something good but Dept. of Environment told us that it just made us look bad, like we were hiding something and that was not a good first impression with the water project just being approved. We apologized to them and informed them to go to Chief Liz’s house from now on for water samples. As a result the June sample did not get done and there is not another one for months. So right now with all this government supportively looking into the well, there is no current water sample for them to go even by. At this juncture, the status is that the well is indeed gone. There is no water. Harold and Gerard Lee used a new pump and even went 30 more feet below and it is official the well is gone. Then we finally made our report to MA and it was too late, the budget was then spoken for and MA respectfully apologized for not believing us in time. So immediately Chief Liz went back to work talking with the current government and trusts that they are working on some kind of a plan for us. We are trying to get them to approve another budget now to connect Flat Bay and Birchy Brook. Because this is the fastest way we will be able to get water service. The media, opposition government and candidates who are running in the by-election have all been showing interest and seeking meetings as well. We are open to talking to anyone and hosting visits and we are very appreciative of all the support and brainstorming that is occurring. Though we are in no way out of the loop with the current government in power. All we can say right now, is that our water crisis is being worked on by government and we have no idea how long it will take. What we can say is that sadly, Birchy Brook will not have water anytime soon. We seriously doubt that it will even be by the time the children start school. It may never be approved? We cannot send a memo out every day and if we could it would only confuse people anyway because we are trying to figure things out as we go along. But as things unfold, we will send memos out and even Facebook messages on the spot. In the meantime, if you want correct versions, please call Harold only, H: 275-2054 or Cell: 587-377-1075. Please refrain from listening to public speculation.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 18:36:18 +0000
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