Kashechewan evacuees in Kapuskasing begin returning home

The first of the 400 evacuees from the Kashechewan First Nation who were relocated to Kapuskasingtwo and half years ago have returned home.

Construction workers have been busy over the summer, building 52 duplexes to replace 36 bungalows that were contaminated with mould after years of flooding and condemned in 2014.

The people who lived in the condemned houses were moved toKapuskasingand have been staying in rental apartments.

The first five families moved in a few weeks ago and another five were to fly in this week, but that's been put off.

• 400 evacuees from Kashechewan still in Kapuskasing 2 years later

Chief Leo Friday said there has been a series of delays with the $50 million construction project, paid for by the federal government. Weather conditions this summer made it difficult to barge supplies into the James Bay community and now the final inspections on the homes have been delayed as well.

Friday said it's been frustrating for his band members anxious to move back home.

"They can't wait. Like they want to come back real bad. Just wanted to make sure that everything is [functioning], everything is hooked up, everything is done right," he said.

Friday says all 400Kapuskasingevacuees should be back inKashechewanby August.

Despite the modular homes being assembled, the entire community could still be relocated in the coming years.

In September, 89 per cent of people in Kashechewan voted in a referendum to move out of the flood plain of the Albany River, where annual flooding has rotted infrastructure and caused regular evacuations.

Chief Friday said the referendum was held to help convince the federal government to pay the millions of dollars it will take to relocate the community to higher ground, further up-river.

"Because of the lot of problems we have in the community, the evacuations and the flood and the dike, we couldn't settle," said Friday.

"Our people couldn't handle it any more."

Friday said he hopes their case will be made stronger by a year-long study on the flood patterns of the Albany River, expected to be complete next month.

Kashechewan was set to move southin 2007 to a location on the Albany River known as Site 5, at cost of $474 million, but the federal government thought the plan was too expensive.