Hundreds show up to public meeting in North Bay, Ont. on forever chemicals that was 'years in the making'

A public meeting in North Bay, Ont., about the presence of "forever chemicals" in the city's drinking water, and plans for remediation, should have happened years ago according to Brennain Llloyd.

"I think that it was excellent to finally have these presentations from the four agencies, but it has been years in the making," said Lloyd, a North Bay resident and project co-ordinator with the environmental group Northwatch.

Hundreds of people were gathered in a hall at the Memorial Gardens hockey arena on Thursday to learn more about perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and the city's plans to remediate a contaminated site that has seeped into Trout Lake – the source of North Bay's drinking water.

PFAS are a family of some 14,000 different substances that are characterized by a stable carbon-fluorine bond. That strong bond means it takes a long time for them to break down in the environment, which is why they are often called "forever chemicals."

Those properties mean PFAS are used in a variety of products from waterproof clothing to dental floss, glass cleaner, some fast food packaging and aqueous film-forming foams.

From the 1970s to late 1990s firefighters training at North Bay's Jack Garland Airport used those firefighting foams which contained PFAS. They seeped into the groundwater and made their way to Lees Creek, which flows to Trout Lake, where the city draws its drinking water.

Research has linked exposure to some PFAS chemicals to liver and prostate cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension, fatty liver disease and affecting lipid function, which is linked to Type 2 diabetes.

A $20-million cleanup

Thursday's meeting was to inform the public about a $20-million cleanup effort from the Department of National Defence and the city at the main site where the firefighting training took place.

"The airport site is really what we would call the hotspot," said Karin Pratte, the city's director of water, wastewater and environmental services.

"So where the most contamination would be, or the largest concentrations of PFAS in the soil, the groundwater and the surface water."

An engineering firm will remove contaminated soil, have it treated, and then install a barrier so more PFAS doesn't get released into the environment.

But the remediation work would not address PFAS that already escaped that site over decades, and has seeped into Trout Lake.

"One of the things that really concerns us is that these PFAS were present in the water for those 40 years and nobody was aware of it," said Liza Vandermeer, a board member with the Trout Lake Conservation Association in North Bay.

"There weren't any detection methods to pick up on it."

Vandermeer says she would like to see PFAS cleaned up downstream from the airport site, and for the city's water treatment plant to be upgraded to filter the chemicals.

Pratte notes there could be future remediation phases, but that the city's drinking water currently meets guidelines set by Ontario's Ministry of the Environment.

"Currently there is no requirement to upgrade our drinking water treatment plant," she said. "If legislation changes in the future, then we would of course be looking at that."

Last year, North Bay's drinking water had average PFAS concentrations of 55.5 nanograms per litre, according to testing done by the city and the Ministry of the Environment.

The Ministry of the Environment's interim advice value, or recommendation, for PFAS in drinking water is 70 nanograms per litre – which is equivalent to around 3.5 drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Those values are based on a guideline from Health Canada.

But Health Canada is currently proposing a new objective of 30 nanograms per litre for the total sum of all PFAS measured in drinking water. North Bay's drinking water exceeds that value.

Other jurisdictions in Europe and the United States have even stricter guidelines. In April the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. approved new drinking water standards of four nanograms per litre for two particular types of PFAS called PFOS and PFOA.

North Bay's PFOS values, in particular, are seven times the limit set in the U.S.

Lloyd, with the environmental group Northwatch, says she remains hopeful Thursday's public meeting will lead to more consultation with the public on PFAS.

"I'm hopeful that the consultation, that engagement between the city and the residents will happen," she said.

"I think that the turnout here today indicates that a lot of people are expecting that."