THIRSTING FOR JUSTICE
‘Money won’t bring the dead back,’ says a mother in Shannon whose son died of brain cancer. ‘It won’t change anything. But as long as there’s the smallest opening, the smallest chance to appeal this, I think we need to keep fighting’
Twenty years later, after two disappointing rulings, residents of Shannon must decide if they will take their fight to the Supreme Court. Jesse Feith reports on Quebec’s tainted-water scandal.
Tests found 71,000 micrograms per litre here. The standard today is five. Do the math. It doesn’t make any sense.
SHANNON, QC Maintenance workers loaded the 45-gallon barrels into their trucks and went into the “mountains,” as they called the area, to dump the waste into pre-dug holes the size of large classrooms.
Sometimes a bulldozer would follow and pour soil over the barrels to bury them. Other times, the workers would empty the barrels directly onto the ground, their contents slowly oozing out like molasses.
The few workers who would later agree to speak about the dumpsites described them as swamp-like, brimming with a dark liquid and void of any vegetation. On clear days, the sun would reflect off the surface like a mirror.
Among the waste contained in the barrels was trichloroethylene, a chemical solvent and carcinogen more commonly known as TCE.
It was used on the Valcartier military base, northwest of Quebec City, as well as at a national defence research centre and nearby munitions factory as early as the 1940s. Workers would apply TCE during different phases of manufacturing ammunition, most often to degrease and clean metal components.
The practice of dumping it on the grounds came to a halt around the same time federal waste disposal regulations were enacted in 1985.
But the damage had already been done.
As the toxic waste seeped into the ground, a 4.5-kilometre-long plume of contaminated groundwater travelled west from the military base toward the Jacques-cartier River, pooling beneath the soil in the neighbouring town of Shannon.
Oblivious to it all were the town’s residents. They relied on private wells for drinking water.
In late 2000, tests conducted at one family’s house revealed disturbing results: Not only was TCE present in their water, but the concentration level was 35 times more than what Health Canada considers acceptable today.
After calculating what appeared to be a disproportionate number of illnesses and cancer cases in town — including one street where nearly every resident had fallen sick — a group of residents decided they needed to take action.
In 2003, they filed a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against the federal government and a subsidiary of Snc-lavalin Group Inc. that owned the munitions factory.
Now nearly 20 years later, after two disappointing rulings and the deadline to try their chances in Supreme Court looming, residents are debating what to do next: accept the court’s findings or keep fighting.
Jean Bernier backs out of his driveway and begins driving toward Shannon’s main strip, a few blocks away from his home.
A 66-year-old retired electrical engineering teacher, Bernier is often referred to as the walking encyclopedia of the town’s battle against the federal government.
He’s lived in Shannon since the army posted his father at the Valcartier base in 1961. After spending his childhood on the base, he later built his home just outside what is now known to be one of the most contaminated residential areas in town. He raised his three children there.
“It’s a very nice place,” he says as he winds through the town’s residential streets, “especially if you don’t know what’s underneath you.”
Throughout the drive, he points to black pipes poking out from the snow. There are seemingly hundreds in the area, marking where drilling was done to test for contamination.
About 10 minutes from his home, he slows his Dodge Caravan to a halt. To his right is a series of condemned-looking buildings behind a fence lined with signs: “Danger: no admittance.”
“This is Sector 214. The worst of the worst sites,” he says, shaking his head. “Tests found 71,000 micrograms per litre here. The standard today is five. Do the math. It doesn’t make any sense.”
His words are tinged with a mix of resentment and anger all these years later.
As a child, he would often venture into the woods with friends to play around the different lagoons where employees dumped TCE.
Even then, he says, there were rumours about the toxic waste accumulating. At the time, it only fuelled childhood curiosity. To have it confirmed so many years later felt like a betrayal. Someone must have known, he says.
The town advised residents as soon as it became aware of the tests conducted in 2000. The notices arrived in mailboxes that December as people were preparing to host for the holidays: stop drinking your water, stop bathing in it, and if you must shower, open your windows to avoid taking in vapours.
A sense of shock set in. Though 40 or so residents were convened to a meeting, hundreds showed up. They packed both floors of the local community centre, squeezing in where they could. A horde of people pushed up against the entrance. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.
“I can just remember the looks on people’s faces,” said then-mayor Clive Kiley, who had the unenviable job of trying to lead the meeting. “People were terribly upset.”
At the meeting were Bernier, Marie-paule Spieser and Claude Juneau. By the next month, they would form a citizen’s committee that ultimately spearheaded the class-action suit. They filed access-to-information requests for all communications between the army base and local health authorities, poring over hundreds of documents spanning decades.
Juneau, 87, had worked as a family doctor in the area between 1960 and the late 1990s, including as head of pediatrics at the local hospital for 20 years. He likes to joke he not only knows everyone in town but likely brought them or a family member into the world.
People started turning to him with questions, but he didn’t have any answers. When he first heard of TCE, he was oblivious to what it was and what, exactly, it could mean for residents to have been consuming it for years.
He went to the toxicology department at the nearest university and started inquiring about the solvent. He remembers the eerie feeling that washed over him when he learned of the possible symptoms.
TCE has been known to cause kidney cancer and linked to liver cancer as well as increased risk of non-hodgkin’s lymphoma. It can also cause other conditions, including gastrointestinal issues, nausea, impaired heart function and skin rashes.
Juneau thought back to the abnormally high number of patients he had treated who had cancer and other illnesses he now learned could be linked to the solvent. He remembered a family of five all suffering from gastric problems. Why, he wondered, had he always filled so many prescriptions for digestive issues?
He put together medical questionnaires and began asking around town.
On a small V-shaped street, in what would later become known as the “red triangle,” almost every family had been afflicted by cancer. In one house alone, three unrelated people — a couple and the previous owner — had suffered from colon cancer. The couple’s son had also died of leukemia.
“I was convinced from the beginning there were too many cases,” Juneau says today. “And you still can’t change my mind.”
The group decided early on Spieser would be the right person to be the lead plaintiff in the case, making her the public face of the battle moving forward.
Spieser, 57, lives in the “red triangle.” When she moved there in 1991, she had two young children at home. She experienced health issues that seemed to ease when she was away from home.
“I just couldn’t let it go,” she says today.
While the residents prepared their case, the town also sued the federal government. A series of out-of-court settlements ultimately resulted in the federal government paying $35 million to build the town a new aqueduct system.
Kiley says he knew from the beginning the town’s lawsuit needed to be separated from the class-action suit: He could tell residents were ready to fight tooth and nail for their case and it would not be settled quickly.
The town, meanwhile, needed to focus on ensuring it had safe drinking water.
“We had to try to push for a good water supply for the people,” he said, “so at least they wouldn’t be living in this fear all the time.”
The residents’ class-action request was filed in 2003 and approved in 2007. By the time it got to trial in 2011, a doctor and two nurses hired by the group had concluded there were 489 cases of cancer in the town, including 72 clustered around the most contaminated area.