Julianna Perkins spent nearly a year reporting on the quality of water on an Indigenous reserve near London, Ont.
The Ryersonian would like to congratulate its managing editor, as well as several other Ryerson journalism students, for reporting on the absence of safe tap water for Oneida First Nation residents.
Julianna Perkins contributed to the Toronto Star’s ongoing national investigative news series Tainted Water, which addresses Canada’s water quality. The series is a collaboration between nine universities and 10 media outlets. Perkins spent about a year working with Katie Swyers, Benjamin Hargreaves and Declan Keogh in Toronto Star investigative reporter Robert Cribb’s investigative journalism class. Their article ran on the front page of Tuesday’s Toronto Star.
Oneida First Nation residents are not the only First Nations community in Canada lacking safe drinking water — the problem is widespread amongst many Indigenous communities. The investigation found that “bringing water and wastewater in Indigenous communities up to standard with the rest of Canada would cost a minimum of $3.2 billion and could cost more than $4.7 billion.”
Over 120 journalists contributed to the Tainted Water investigation, exposing alarming levels of lead and other impurities in Canada’s drinking water.