Leaders at a native reserve in northern Ontario are pleading with both the federal and provincial governments for help with their contaminated drinking water.

The 1,900 residents of Kashechewan First Nation reserve off James Bay have been under a constant boil-water order for more than two years and have had a number of intermittent advisories since 1998.

But even that has not prevented many residents from developing a litany of illnesses caused by polluted water, including chronic diarrhea, scabies and the bacterial disease impetigo, in which sees parasites live under the skin.

Last week, federal officials warned that the water was showing high levels of E. coli, which can be deadly for the young and elderly.

Leaders in the community say that several federal agencies as well as the Ontario government have long known about deficiencies at the water treatment plant at the reserve. Yet nothing has been done.

"This has been out of sight and out of mind for most Canadians," New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, who is working with reserve leaders on a solution, told Canada AM Tuesday.

"What is happening in Kashechewan is systemic negligence on the part of Indian Affairs officials and Health Canada officials that have allowed this community to basically deteriorate to the level where the complete infrastructure of that community has collapsed.

"And now they're facing not just E. coli, but hepatitis A and the threat of hepatitis B outbreaks."

The plant, funded 10 years ago by the federal department of Indian Affairs, was designed by out-of-town consultants. It was placed downstream from an existing sewage lagoon. That means contaminants flow past the intake pipe that feeds raw water into the complex system to be treated for drinking.

"From the beginning, that water plant failed," says Angus. "It was not built properly. It was not built to proper size. Experts that we brought into that plant have told us it's a shot in the dark to guarantee human health, even at the best of times, because of the heavy levels of E. coli."

Angus says while Indian Affairs is responsible for the shoddy treatment plant, Health Canada has not offered help either, offering only the boil-water advisories.

Stan Loutitt, grand chief of the Mushkegowuk Council, calls conditions in Kashechewan "a third-world situation here in Ontario'' caused by "jurisdictional haggling between governments.''

The Ontario minister responsible for aboriginal affairs, David Ramsay, says water on reserves is a matter of federal jurisdiction. He says federal Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott told him that officials in Ottawa will respond to Kashechewan's plea for help within 10 days.

On Monday, Prime Minister Paul Martin called the crisis "worrisome'' and said he'll meet with Scott this week to discuss the situation.

But Leo Friday, Chief of Kashechewan First Nation, would like more.

"I would like to see them in the community to come and see firsthand what I'm talking about. That way they'll have an idea. I want more and more attention to the community, and the needs of my people and the community.

"This is not just third world conditions, these are negligent conditions, and the government has known all along. And I would like to ask [Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh] when he will step into this community and end this suffering right now and take decisive action."