Every time workers dig into the ground in Attawapiskat First Nation, Chief Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin says there is a chance they will uncover a problem the community has lived with for decades.

During repairs near her home, she said a worker stopped to tell her what he had found beneath the surface, close to a water line.

“Hey, chief, I saw the fuel on your property. A pool of fuel,” she recalled him saying.

But there was no equipment to clean it up, she said, so the excavation was covered again.