WHY DIDN'T INFO FLOW?
We already knew there was a delay of two years between the National Research Council warning its staff against drinking contaminated water in Ramsay Meadows and telling nearby residents. Newly obtained documents reveal several other agencies at the federal, provincial and municipal levels were in the loop. Nobody said a word.
Many government agencies knew about the suspicious well water in Ramsay Meadows, a small subdivision halfway between Almonte and Carleton Place. But none of those agencies told the residents.
The 49 homes stand across the street from the National Research Council's national fire lab, which does research on firefighting. In late 2013, the lab bosses learned that their firefighting chemicals had contaminated their property's groundwater, probably in the late 1990s.
That quickly raised questions about the Ramsay Meadows wells.
NRC told its lab staff not to drink the tap water, and brought in bottled water. But they didn't tell their neighbours in Ramsay Meadows for more than two years, until late December 2015.
That fact emerged a few years ago. But now documents from Health Canada, obtained under the Access to information Act, show that other federal, provincial and municipal agencies also knew about the possible contamination for more than two years, while none of them told the residents.
Health Canada staffers even warned their superiors that the issue was likely to become controversial because of the delay in warning residents who were drinking potentially contaminated groundwater.
The other agencies that knew of the contamination for up to two years before the residents did were: Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change; Environment Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; and a professor at Queen's University. In the final two months the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark Health Unit also knew.
Families who live in the homes are still relying on bottled water. They have begun a class-action lawsuit against NRC.
The contamination involves chemicals called PFAS — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — which are used in firefighting foams. Health Canada has concluded that the health risk to families is low.
As contractors dug more and more test wells out at the edge of the lab's property back in 2015, Health Canada noted that nearby residents “have been asking increasingly probing questions with respect to the quality of their groundwater.”
There was potential for this to become a “hot issue,” the department wrote in a briefing note. It warned senior management that media might ask questions if the news became public, “given the impact on residential drinking water and what could be seen as a slow response from NRC to inform residents.”
NRC finally informed its neighbours just before Christmas 2015, after the neighbours noticed their well water had sediment and discoloration caused by the test-well drilling nearby. That's when NRC offered to test residents' wells too.
Michael Hebert, a lawyer for the residents, says it probably wasn't Health Canada's job to notify residents directly. But he said “clearly, their duty, in my view, would be to go to NRC and say: Look, there's a problem here. You know more about it than we do. You'd better get to the landowners that are down-gradient (downstream) and do something.”
He also said Health Canada supports “unscientific, untested limits for what is supposed to be safe ingestion.”
The NRC was the lead agency in dealing with the water issue, while Health Canada had only an advisory role through its Contaminated Sites offices. However, Health Canada's mission statement also includes objectives to “provide health information to help Canadians make informed decisions.”
When asked this week for comment on the matter, the federal department said in an email:
“Health Canada's role is specifically to provide human-health advice to federal departments/agencies responsible for managing the risks of their contaminated sites.
“In this context, Health Canada
was engaged by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to review technical documentation and provide advice to the NRC as they sought to understand the extent of contamination and potential health risks to the community.”
Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, which oversees drinking water, says it didn't contact residents because it was unaware the chemicals had moved off the NRC site until October 2015.
An Ottawa expert in access to government information says the departments should have shared what they knew from the start.
“Suppression of safety data makes a chemical problem like this even more toxic,” said Ken Rubin, a private researcher.
“Not talking openly and immediately disclosing information that at least two federal agencies kept under wraps … is unconscionable.
“Our drinking water, including from underground wells, is not always that healthy for us or the environment.”