Foot-dragging on a dangerous chemical

Let’s talk about perfluorooctane sulfonate, also known by the more pronounceable acronym PFOS.

It’s a toxic chemical that can build up in the human bloodstream. It has been linked to weakened immune systems and cancer. It’s not the sort of thing you want in our water table.

But none of that was known back in the ’80s when it was used as a firefighting chemical at airports, including Mount Hope. In fact, 15,000 litres per year of the toxic foam was dumped there. Not surprisingly, it leaked and leached into area ditches and water systems. It showed up in Lake Niapanco in the Binbrook Conservation Area. It has been found in fish.

Now PFOS is widely banned in Canada. But it hasn’t been removed from Hamilton’s airport. Paul Widmeyer of the provincial environment ministry says it “continues to be detected” in an airport pond, and it’s possible chemicals are still escaping the property.

Given all this, you might think that people responsible for public health and safety would want to solve the problem permanently. Not so much, based on what’s happened to date.

Instead, the airport operator, the city, the province and the federal government (which ran the airport in the ’80s) have been arguing for seven years — yes, seven years — about whose responsibility it is and who should pay for the cleanup. That won’t be cheap, with one proposal estimated to cost $2 million.

But really, isn’t public health and safety the first concern, as opposed to who gets stuck with the bill? Shouldn’t the problem be fixed and then the parties can wrangle over who pays what? Maybe we’re missing something, but it sounds like, on this file, the stakeholders have their priorities seriously backwards.