North Bay considers $122M deal to expand chemical cleanup at the airport

Meeting on Tuesday, city council in North Bay will consider expanding its $20 million agreement with the Department of National Defence to $122 million to clean up soil at the airport. (File)

Meeting on Tuesday, city council in North Bay will consider expanding its $20 million agreement with the Department of National Defence to $122 million to clean up soil at the airport.

If approved, the DND would pay $118 million -- 97 per cent of the cost -- while the city’s share would be around $4 million.

The agreement centres on the removal of a chemical called perfluoralkylated substances (PFAS, for short), which were widely used at the Jack Garland Airport in a foam for firefighting training from the mid-1970s until the late 1990s, when the airport was owned by Transport Canada.

PFAS have been linked to high cholesterol, increased liver enzymes, decreased vaccination response, thyroid disorders, pregnancy-induced hypertension, preeclampsia and cancers such as testicular and kidney cancer.

The airport is near Lee’s Creek, which connects to Trout Lake, where the city draws its drinking water, raising concerns about PFAS contamination.

“Since 2017 DND has been leading an investigation of the PFAS contamination in the City of North Bay,” said a staff report on the proposal.

“The City of North Bay has been actively addressing PFAS contamination through ongoing monitoring, environmental remediation, and planning for enhancements to its water treatment processes.”

In 2021, the city and DND agreed to a $20 million cleanup at the airport, with DND paying $18 million and the city $2 million. That deal runs until March 2027.

The latest update on that process in November reported that more than 26,000 tonnes of contaminated soil have been removed from the North Bay airport.

The $122 million plan is to extend the agreement – and the cleanup work – until 2037.

“The contribution agreement increases the total project costs from $20 million to $122,670,523 over a 16-year term,” a staff report said.

“The agreement stipulates that DND will fund 97 per cent of the costs for a total of $118,990,407 and the remaining three per cent or $3,680,116, will be funded by the City of North Bay.”

In addition, city council is also being asked to approve an $8.25 million plan for a pilot project at the water treatment plant to allow the city to meet stringent PFAS objectives from Health Canada.

The goal is to upgrade the plant to lower PFAS levels in the water, with the DND paying about $8 million and the city $247,000 for the work.

Karin Pratte, the city’s director of water, wastewater and environmental services, told a public meeting in November that the pilot project would see the water filtered to remove PFAS.

“We take the surface water as it comes down out of the storm ditches and then flow it through the adsorptive media and then release it back into the stormwater pond,” Pratte said.

“So, while it’s doing that, it is treating and removing the PFAS through that adsorptive material, similar to like a Britta filter.”

Read the staff report on the $122 million expansion here and the water treatment pilot project here.