Troubled Waters: In Lytton, a fix for decades of boil-water advisories

March 17, 2017

IC-IMPACTS brings together scientists and businesses in both countries to address challenges in rural India and among Canada’s First Nations, which, as Irving Leblanc, special adviser to the Assembly of First Nations, told an IC-IMPACTS seminar last year, face similar public health statistics, challenges and opportunities.The treatment system, drawing water from Lytton’s Nickeyeah Creek, was designed in Madjid Mohseni’s lab at the University of British Columbia, with funding for the pilot project from ICIMPACTS.

Now, Mohseni and IC-IMPACTS are trying to replicate the success of Lytton’s treatment facility elsewhere in B.C., including northern B.C.’s Tl’azt’en First Nation, and a non-native rural community on Texada Island. Mohseni is also collaborating with scientists in Bangalore on another IC-IMPACTS project, researching desalinization technologies that could apply not only in water-scarce southern India, but also the Canadian prairies, where many aquifers have “brackish water” containing high levels of salt and minerals.