It's National Indigenous Peoples Day in the colonial state of Canada. For some people, it’s the summer solstice. For some people, it's a day of ceremony. For some people, it's a day of celebration. For some people, it's a work day. For others, it is a regular day.

Whatever you are doing today, we wish you well and invite you to check out our newly launched Community Water Quality Monitoring program's Interactive Map!

https://bit.ly/KOWdataMap

Our focus for this project is to support Indigenous communities in having healthy and clean water, along with tools and educational resources that help amplify Indigenous science (TEK, Traditional Ecological Knowledge) of the territories that Creator placed us on.

Keepers of the Water stand firm and are committed to ensuring that Western science can no longer be the norm for environmental studies and that Indigenous science is critical and must be included and centred in the country's decisions, policies, and law-making spaces.

With our water monitoring tools, community members measure water oxygen levels, temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, TDS (total dissolved solids), and water levels. This work is part of our ongoing effort to raise the alarm bell in so-called Canada about the devastating impacts of tar sands mining, the growing toxic tailings ponds, the Athabasca River and all of the life that relies on that river.

More than a trillion litres of toxic waste are stored in tailings “ponds” near the Athabasca River, and we know those "ponds" are actively leaking and have been witnessing environmental racism with every news item from the Imperial Oil toxic tailing disaster.

Every tributary in the Arctic Drainage Basin is vital to the Indigenous Peoples living within their watersheds. Our territories are sacred places that allow us to exercise our right to hunt, fish, trap, and exist in our territories.

Climate change induced by human activity is the number one driver of lakes and rivers drying up. We are in a time when water is being commodified while simultaneously being contaminated. Access to clean water in Indigenous communities is our first priority.

We must rely on ourselves rather than governments or industry to monitor the quality of the water. Fresh water should be drinkable from its source, not treatable from the source.

#NationalIndigenousPeoplesDay #KeepersoftheWater #WaterIsLife #CitizenBasedScience #InteractiveMap