The Yarmouth Airport in February, 2025. Residents of towns near the airport discovered their drinking water exceeded Health Canada’s guideline for the toxic chemicals.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
Transport Canada officials met with other federal agencies to discuss firefighting foams leaching into groundwater near airports at least eight years before notifying two Atlantic Canadian communities affected by the resulting drinking water contamination, a document obtained by The Globe and Mail shows.
The toxic compounds in those foams have since come to be known as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment and the human body, where they have been linked to cancer, developmental delays and immune disorders.
This June, the federal government will place further restrictions on these chemicals, properly known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in firefighting foam, because of the toxic risk.
But that move is too late for residents in at least eight communities across six provinces whose drinking water has been tainted with PFAS, leaving them to rely on bottled water provided by the federal government.
In depth: ‘Forever chemicals’ in drinking water leave these communities in toxic limbo
The 2016 document, titled “PFAS Working Group Meeting,” was obtained under access to information law. It shows senior bureaucrats from Health Canada, Transport Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the National Research Council and the Department of National Defence were regularly meeting about the status of various initiatives to assess the risks of groundwater contamination where firefighting drills using toxic PFAS-laced foams took place for decades.
Some of those drills took place on airport properties across the country that were owned and operated by Transport Canada. The department maintains it took appropriate steps to assess and manage PFAS that have been identified in the vicinity of those sites.
According to the six-page document, at least one member of the working group, the National Research Council, was already acting by 2016 to address the potential that PFAS had leaked into the groundwater near the National Fire Laboratory in Mississippi Mills, Ont. That effort included contacting residents, testing their water, and providing filters and drinking water.
But it wasn’t for another eight years that residents of towns near Yarmouth International Airport in Nova Scotia and St. John’s International Airport in Newfoundland and Labrador were advised of the issue and discovered their drinking water exceeded Health Canada’s guideline for the toxic chemicals.
In the winter of 2024, some of Sharman Fells’ neighbours in Arcadia, N.S., received letters from Transport Canada asking to sample their drinking water because of the level of PFAS found on the property of the nearby Yarmouth airport, one of 50 contaminated sites Transport Canada is responsible for.
Roy and Sharman Fells' home tested with PFAS levels in their drinking water three times higher than the Health Canada guidelines as a result of their proximity to the Yarmouth airport.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
Mrs. Fells said she was shocked and angry to learn Transport Canada was investigating the known problem, but had waited years to begin offering to test her well water.
Her results, which she shared with The Globe, showed there were PFAS levels three times higher than the Health Canada guideline of 30 nanograms a litre (equal to 0.00003 parts per million) in her drinking water.
“I would like to know why it did take so long?” Mrs. Fells said after The Globe showed her the federal document from 2016. “It’s that much longer that we were blindly consuming toxicity.”
For decades, the Fells drank that water in their bungalow, built by Mrs. Fells’ husband Roy Fells on a plot of land about a kilometre downhill from the airport. In the southwestern Nova Scotia community, neighbours recall seeing plumes of black smoke from firefighting foam billowing into the air during training drills in the 1990s.
Her husband’s recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, an illness that has been linked to PFAS exposure, also raises questions that will likely never be answered.
The Fells no longer drink the water from their taps after the discovery.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
“That’s a big question in my mind,” Mrs. Fells said. “Would he have gotten it anyway?”
The osteoarthritis she was diagnosed with decades ago also plays on her mind. PFAS have also been linked to osteoarthritis progression.
Residents in the Newfoundland town of Torbay, located downstream from the St. John’s International Airport, also received letters from Transport Canada in early 2024 about potential drinking water contamination.
Ken Baird, who lives in the town but was not one of the people who received a letter, eventually had his well water tested by Transport Canada after going public with results he obtained from an accredited lab.
The Transport Canada test results showed PFAS nearly three times above the Health Canada guideline. Mr. Baird said he wasn’t surprised, but that he was angry and disheartened that no one warned him.
“Had I relied on Transport Canada, I’d still be living in the dark, thinking my well is safe,” he said.
Residents of the communities in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, as well as residents of Abbotsford, B.C., have launched lawsuits against Transport Canada for losses in property values owing to PFAS in their drinking water.
St. John’s lawyer Alex Templeton, who represents residents in Torbay and nearby Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove in a class-action lawsuit, said based on what Transport Canada knows and its internal guidance on how to manage PFAS-contaminated sites, the department has not taken a proper precautionary approach and has failed to sufficiently communicate with residents.
“The fact that they may have unwittingly been drinking dangerous levels of this contaminant for years without knowledge – Transport Canada is not adequately informing residents about what’s going on,” he said, adding that about 1,400 properties in Torbay and Logy Bay are affected.
In response to questions about the eight-year delay, Transport Canada spokesperson Simon Rivet said the department has taken “reasonable and appropriate steps to assess and manage PFAS that have been identified in the vicinity of several Canadian airports.”
North Bay residents file lawsuit alleging ‘forever chemicals’ contaminated wells
Those steps include providing bottled, participating in a Torbay town hall and conducting a water treatment pilot project.
“Out of respect for the judicial process, Transport Canada will not comment further on these matters while they are before the courts,” said Mr. Rivet in an e-mailed statement.
In court filings, Transport Canada has denied responsibility for the contamination in Newfoundland and Abbotsford, saying it can’t be held liable because the adverse environmental and health effects of firefighting foams were not known at the time they were used.
Since last year, Torbay residents and Mr. Templeton have repeatedly called for Transport Canada to conduct a hydrogeological assessment to map the plume of PFAS contamination in the groundwater.
U.S.-based hydrologist James Connor – who has worked on legal cases involving the contamination of groundwater by PFAS – said such a study is the only way to predict the movement of PFAS. The chemicals are resistant to degradation and can resurface great distances from their original disposal site.
“You need to get out there, collect data, have professionals do it who are experts in that particular area – and there are plenty of them in Canada," he said in an interview.
In response to questions from The Globe in April, Transport Canada spokesperson Hicham Ayoun said a hydrogeological study is now in the works and will occur as part of its continuing PFAS monitoring program.