Toronto ? Government authorities began an emergency airlift Wednesday to move more than 1,000 residents from an impoverished Indian reserve where drinking water was contaminated by raw sewage.

The abrupt evacuation order, after months of wrangling between government agencies, highlighted poor conditions on native reserves and questions about Canada’s sewage discharge practices, which one environmental group called a “national disgrace.”

Most remote northern towns – including reserves of Indians, called “First Nations” here – dump sewage directly into lakes or rivers, according to a series of reports by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, based in Vancouver.

Even larger cities, including Montreal, Halifax and Victoria, dump raw sewage into the seas.

The evacuation was being carried out at Kashechewan, a Cree Indian reserve on the western shore of James Bay, about 600 miles north of Toronto.

The water intake of the reserve, a riverbank community of about 1,900 persons, is downstream from a sewage outlet. Local Cree leaders have long complained about the water quality, but various federal agencies have argued over how to deal with it.