Fresh water. Canada has more of it than almost any other country on Earth. According to the United Nations Development Program, over 99.8 per cent of Canadians have access to pure drinking water and safe sanitation.

But try telling that to Mike Gull. "Our water smells like raw sewage right now," says Gull, head of the water treatment program at Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario. "It's very septic. There's lots of bad stuff in here, lots of dead organic matter."

Chief Connie Gray-McKay of Mishkeegogamang First Nation, 500 km northwest of Thunder Bay, has similar concerns. "Our water smells like iron and magnesium. People have allergic reactions to it, and their laundry turns yellow."

I've been struggling with what to write next, given the unreal amount of attention my last post got. I felt some pressure to use the attention to get a message out... but what do I say, where do I start? How can I top a "big picture" article like one by Wayne Spear, which addresses so much of what I've been trying to say in my responses to comments?