The James Smith Cree Nation north of Melfort, has been inundated with rain, and is facing a health crisis due to unsafe drinking water.

Chief Wally Burns says the rainfall is destroying what's left of their roads and water systems, after dealing with flooding last year as well.

Burns says at least 9 homes in the community have had their drinking water contaminated when floodwater leaked into their cisterns.

On August 4th, the James Smith Cree Nation declared a local state of emergency for their community of 3-thousand people, and this past weekend a child was air lifted from the community after becoming sick from drinking contaminated water.

140 people have been evacuated.

Last month, the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (P-DAP) met with the First Nation leadership to review the situation and provided 110-thousand dollars to repair damage from previous years of flooding.

Burns says this falls well short of what is needed.

Federal and Provincial Government representatives toured the community today (Tues)

Chief Burns says engineers will be on site Thursday and Friday, and then they will meet again with P-DAP and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada mid next week.

In the last two months, they have had more than 142 millimetres of rain, and normally they would get about half that.

(ct aug14/12)