VANCOUVER — For 20 years, the Lhoosk’uz Dené First Nation has been trucking in bottled water. Now, thanks to a partnership with experts at the University of British Columbia, those days are over.

A special ceremony was held last week to celebrate the nation finally getting clean tap water.

It’s a milestone Chief Liliane Squinas says took years of work to achieve.

“(It) seems like forever,” Squinas said. “We’ve never had drinking water.”

The UBC team worked with the community to make sure the system can be locally operated and maintained without specialized or expensive equipment.

The new system replaces communal wells that the nation had been using for household water needs, while trucking in their drinking water via the one logging road that leads to their village.

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