The town of Norman Wells, Northwest Territories has declared a “humanitarian local state of emergency” after severe drought along the Mackenzie River supercharged the cost of getting fuel and other supplies into the community.
At a council meeting Tuesday, Mayor Frank Pope said the town is asking the NWT government (GNWT) to issue an emergency declaration that would enable it to seek federal financial support, CBC reports. He said the town is looking for C$6.6 million to get more heating fuel to local residents.
“There are many other issues we want to talk about down the road: gasoline, aviation fuel, cost of living,” Pope told councillors. “But today’s crucial issue is heating fuel.”
He added that Norman Wells, population 800, would be looking to Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely to bring the motion forward when the territorial assembly reconvenes today.
“Mayor and Council recognize that the recent increase in fuel prices has significantly impacted the community, straining household budgets, raising transportation costs, and affecting local businesses. We know this is hard for all of us,” council said in its own statement. “This declaration is vital for elevating the community’s needs to the federal level through the territorial government, ensuring the necessary support is provided to residents and businesses.”
The town also announced that all water and sewer service fees will be waived for three months and assured residents that the local food pantry “is stocked with healthy foods and is available to anyone in need.”
Almost exactly a year ago, Pope and his counterpart in Tulita, NWT, Douglas Yallee, were raising alarm bells in Ottawa with an 11-page document that outlined the problems their communities were already facing—with many of those issues related to the Mackenzie River and tracing back to climate change.
“It’s critical that people know our problems,” Pope said at the time. “We thought the best way to do that was to go bang on doors. We’ve done enough with correspondence.”
News reports at the time explained that the Peace and Athabasca river systems, which flow through British Columbia and Alberta, feed the Mackenzie, but drought conditions over the summer of 2023 had led to low water levels. That affected the way shipping barges travelled the river and prevented the final barge of the year from reaching Norman Wells and Tulita.
“We filled them in on our fear that there would be no resupply on the Mackenzie River next year if we don’t get water from B.C.,” Pope said.
“I don’t know if we’ll get barging next year,” added Yallee. “We may not have a road. It’s going to be a lot harder for people. If you fly the products that we need into the community, the costs are going to be high. Everything will probably go up because of that.”
A month later, Pope said global heating was steadily drying up one of the country’s mightiest waterways.
“Climate changes caused water levels and the Mackenzie River—our river highway—to drop to non-navigable levels by midseason this past summer,” he told a Senate committee. “Tonnes of freight, including groceries and heating fuel, are left undelivered to our region due to these low water levels, causing much of our tradable merchandise to be flown in at high cost.”
By late May, 2024, it was already clear that Norman Wells and Tulita would have to do without barge deliveries this year. That was after the GNWT declared that the Mackenzie River near Fort Providence was “not navigable and includes obstacles such as large boulders and gravel bars at key manoeuvring areas.”
“Tuesday’s motion comes less than a week after the NWT government announced one-time funding to help offset the costs of flying supplies into Norman Wells by up to $30,000 per business,” CBC writes. At the meeting, some councillors said they would only support the motion if the emergency funding the community sought was directed to residents and businesses, not to the municipality.
But “if this is our first step and we have to take it in order for the [GNWT] to act, to then have the federal government act, I’m all for it,” said Coun. Alexis Peachey. “People in Norman Wells need help now.”
