City of North Bay exploring options to remove forever chemicals from drinking water

The northern Ontario city of North Bay says it is exploring options to upgrade its water treatment plant so it can treat per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly referred to as forever chemicals, although there's no funding currently in place to do that.

The city has been remediating a site at the Jack Garland Airport that was contaminated with PFAS from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, when firefighters trained there using aqueous film-forming foams that contain PFAS.

The Department of National Defence has covered most of the $20-million cost to remove and treat contaminated soil from the site. To date, contractors have removed around 23,000 tonnes of soil from the site, according to North Bay city spokesperson Gord Young.

The next phase of the cleanup, expected to start in early 2026, will be to add underground barriers to keep water from seeping out of the area.

But prior to recent remediation efforts, PFAS seeped into groundwater and made its way into Trout Lake, the source of North Bay's drinking water.

"We think it's great that the city and department and the federal government is moving ahead with cleaning up the contaminated site where the PFAS is coming from," said Liza Vandermeer, who lives in North Bay and sits on the board of the Trout Lake Conservation Association.

"The concern we have is that there are very high levels of PFAS in Trout Lake already and that PFAS is going straight into our municipal water supply. Our drinking water, which serves the City of North Bay, as well as all the people who live on Trout Lake who draw that water."

Canada is in the process of adding PFAS to its list of toxic substances. Certain PFAS chemicals have been linked to issues with the kidneys, liver, immune system and thyroid problems.

On Aug. 9, 2024, Health Canada updated its objective value for the sum concentration of 25 types of PFAS in drinking water to 30 nanograms per litre. Measurements taken in Trout Lake in 2023 reached an average of 56 nanograms per litre for 11 PFAS substances.

The measurements did adhere to Health Canada's recommendations at the time, which was for PFAS not to exceed 70 nanograms per litre — equivalent to around 3.5 drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

A shared responsibility 

In an email to CBC News, Health Canada said making sure Canadians have access to safe drinking water is a shared responsibility between federal, provincial and municipal governments. 

"The day-to-day responsibility of providing safe drinking water to the public generally rests with the provinces and territories, while municipalities usually oversee the day-to-day operations of the treatment facilities," the email added.

Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks spokesperson Lindsay Davidson said in an email that most provinces are in the "initial stages of planning/conduction monitoring programs" around Health Canada's new PFAS recommendations.

Davidson added that if Ontario adopts Health Canada's new standards "the ministry would expect the city [North Bay] to provide a plan of how they will meet the revised objective, and then implement that plan."

North Bay spokesperson Gord Young said possible treatment options would include granular activated carbon and an ion exchange to remove PFAS before it reaches people's taps.