Damage claim over fire lab certified as class action
An Ottawa judge has certified a class-action lawsuit launched by a group of Mississippi Mills homeowners who say a local fire-research lab polluted their drinking water and devalued their homes.
The sprawling laboratory is owned by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).
The homeowners contend the NRC, through its negligence, released firefighting chemicals into the environment from the lab, contaminating their land.
In a recent decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith certified the class-action lawsuit, which allows it to move forward.
A class action, the judge said, will allow the homeowners to share the cost of hiring experts to pursue justice in what promises to be a complex case. The NRC filed 16 reports as part of the certification motion, he noted.
“If the plaintiffs' claim is not certified as a class proceeding, the plaintiffs are unlikely to be able to afford to proceed,” Smith said.
The NRC has admitted its Ramsay Road research facility is the source of the toxic compounds that have migrated into the groundwater of the nearby residential development known as Ramsay Meadows.
But the NRC opposed certification, arguing that perfluoroalkylated substances (PFAS) were not detected in the drinking water of the majority of the 69 homeowners involved. PFAS are chemicals commonly used in firefighting foam.
Court heard that contamination was detected in 10 to 15 properties. Homes in the Ramsay Meadows subdivision all rely on well water.
Lawyers for the homeowners argued that everyone near the lab has suffered similar financial harm since they've all experienced a decline in property values.
Between 1981 and 2016, the NRC used the site for fire-safety research, including tests on firefighting foams containing PFAS.
In 2012, the NRC hired a consultant to conduct an environmental assessment of the lab site. The Stantec report identified low levels of PFAS in the soil, groundwater and drinking water, but said there was no risk to human health.
In March 2015, Stantec delivered another report, which found that soil samples at the site had PFAS levels that exceeded federal guidelines. That November, samples from the drinking water of three Ramsay Meadows homes showed the presence of PFAS. Levels in one home exceeded Health Canada guidelines.
One month later, the NRC delivered letters to 49 homes in the subdivision, advising residents their drinking water could be contaminated. The NRC suggested they boil their water and offered to do further testing.
In February 2016, the NRC offered to provide bottled water and to install water-filtration systems in the affected homes, an offer later extended to 20 more homes nearby.
Smith rejected the homeowners' request to pursue punitive damages against the NRC. Lawyers for the homeowners argued the NRC waited too long to inform them of possible drinking-water contamination, but Smith said there was no evidence that the NRC engaged in abusive or high-handed conduct.
At the time most of the NRC experiments were conducted, the judge noted, there were no health guidelines for PFAS.
Carleton University leased space at the lab for more than a decade and built a 10-storey burn tower, where fire-safety engineers set structures on fire to examine how fire and smoke moved inside highrise buildings. Carleton's lab also included a fully instrumented tunnel — used to burn a subway car — and a hall large enough to contain a framed house.
The judge ruled that Carleton shouldn't be part of the class-action lawsuit since there was no evidence it used firefighting foam with PFAS in its experiments.
Homeowner Suzanne Taylor said the subdivision continues to have drinking water delivered at the expense of the NRC, which also regularly tests the area's well water.
“They (the NRC) has been pretty co-operative,” said Taylor, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 13 years. “But I'm a bit worried about what happens when we sell.”