Excessive amounts of forever chemicals – properly known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – were found along Lee’s Creek.Gino Donato/The Globe and Mail
Phil Arens spreads a stack of lab reports across his dining room table, jabbing at test results showing how heavily his well has been laced with “forever chemicals” seeping downhill from North Bay’s airport.
“It really bounces around,” says the plumbing contractor. “Here I am at 93, then 48, 11, 35, 31 – then there was 226. That was last August. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
The numbers express the concentration of forever chemicals – properly known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – in his tap water, measured in nanograms a litre (ng/L). Last year, Health Canada responded to rising public alarm over research linking the chemicals to an array of health problems and issued new drinking water guidance: The total concentration of 25 common PFAS in drinking water should not exceed 30 ng/L.
But the number is a non-enforceable benchmark. Drinking water regulations are largely up to the provinces. Ontario’s PFAS limit sits at a much higher level, 70 ng/L.
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Depending on the test, Mr. Arens’s water comes in far above, safely below or somewhere in between those two thresholds.
His aggravation is shared throughout this Canadian Shield hub of just over 50,000 people. In the past eight years, countless water quality tests have found excessive PFAS in both private wells and the municipal drinking water system, contamination tied to the city’s history as a Cold War military hub.
It’s a vexing problem and the only remedy in place isn’t expected to yield results for another decade, leaving locals to wonder whether their water is safe and who will pay to fix it.
“It’s all deeply upsetting,” said one resident, Colin Norwood, who uses a PFAS-reducing filter at home. “We have no knowledge of what these chemicals might do to us in 20 years.”
A Globe investigation this past weekend revealed the federal government is supplying bottled water to residents in North Bay and 10 other communities after PFAS originating from federal properties was found in their tap water. Court records show that some residents unknowingly drank contaminated water for years while Ottawa sat on test results. Now, they’re demanding to know how long they were exposed and when their tap water will be safe to drink again.
Prized for their durability against heat, oil, acid and water, PFAS became ubiquitous in consumer goods, such as non-stick pans and waterproof clothing, after their invention in the late 1930s.
They also proved to be an effective additive to foams used in fighting fuel fires. These aqueous film-forming foams became standard equipment on airports and military bases in the 1970s.
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At the time, North Bay housed a major NORAD installation, staffed by hundreds of Canadian and U.S. military personnel.
Firefighters conducted regular drills at the airport using foams that would flow into a stormwater system feeding Lee’s Creek.
“The Department of National Defence was basically unloading a truckload worth of firefighting foam weekly for 30 years between the ’70s and ’90s,” said Karin Pratte, the city’s director of water, wastewater and environmental services.
The toxic legacy surfaced in 2010, when the Defence Department tests found PFAS in base drinking water, though in concentrations below federal guidelines of the day (300 ng/L and 700 ng/L for two common types of PFAS), according spokesman Captain Alexander Naraine.
Those thresholds have come down steadily, however, as governments respond to research linking PFAS to cancers, decreased fertility and developmental delays.
In 2017, Ontario brought in a PFAS threshold of 70 ng/L. That’s when a new round of provincial and Defence Department testing found excessive PFAS levels along Lee’s Creek, which flows from around the airport into the city’s main drinking water source, Trout Lake.
Brennain Lloyd, project manager with Northwatch, an environmental group that has raised concerns about the contamination of Trout Lake due to PFAS in the water.Gino Donato/The Globe and Mail
Many residents along the creek draw from wells. Testing found at least 23 households with PFAS levels over 70 ng/L, including Mr. Arens’s.
The department is now paying for regular bottled water shipments to the homes and has offered to install filtration systems. People on tainted wells have also been warned against eating from plants or animals nourished by the water.
The bigger problem lies downstream. PFAS levels in Trout Lake fluctuate between 47 and 65 ng/L. That’s below the provincial limit but above the federal guidance, putting North Bay’s drinking water in a grey area.
The city’s water treatment plant, opened in 2010, wasn’t designed to remove the chemicals.
Despite local media coverage, six of eight residents The Globe and Mail interviewed while buying water jugs said they were unaware of the contamination issue.
“It’s very frustrating that the responsible agencies aren’t stepping up to make the information much more available and to engage the people in making decisions about their future,” said Brennain Lloyd, project co-ordinator for Northwatch, a local environmental group.
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The city held a public meeting with the Defence Department last year and posts PFAS resources online.
“The information is out there,” said Councillor Chris Mayne. “I think there’s an assumption that it’s not at a crisis level at this point, that it’s being dealt with to some degree.”
This year, the first phase of a $20-million remediation project funded largely by the department removed 26,000 tonnes of PFAS-impacted soil from the airport’s former firefighter training area, Ms. Pratte said. Forthcoming phases will focus on remediation of a stormwater pond and installation of a groundwater barrier.
Ms. Pratte said the current work should affect drinking water quality within 10 years.
That leaves the problem of how to improve water quality until then. North Bay has hired consultants to test treatment technologies, but Mr. Mayne said scaling up the plant to filter PFAS is estimated at $40-million to $50-million, a heavy strain on a city with a $167-million budget.
The municipality has requested an additional $269-million from DND to cover further clean-up costs, according to departmental spending estimates.
Ms. Pratte said the city’s ultimate goal is to meet the 30 ng/L standard.
Until then, what is she telling friends and neighbours who ask whether the water is safe to drink?
“The residents can drink the water,” she said. “I’m drinking the water.”