The City of North Bay has awarded a contract worth nearly $5 million for the remediation of chemicals at the Jack Garland Airport.

The city awarded the contract to Jacobs Consultancy Canada Inc. for engineering consulting services associated with the remediation of per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances (PFAS) at the municipally owned airport. The project is being funded through a $20-million contribution agreement reached earlier this year between the City of North Bay and the Department of National Defence (DND).

Under the agreement, DND will provide up to $19.4 million over six years toward the airport PFAS cleanup, including study, removal and remediation. The city’s share of costs is three percent of actuals up to a maximum of $600,000. The agreement also allows the city to submit a second proposal in the future for additional costs, if required.

“This contract marks the beginning of our PFAS cleanup efforts at the airport and we are extremely pleased that this work will be proceeding,” said Mayor Al McDonald. “We’ve work hard over the past few years, always with the health and safety of our residents top of mind, to reach an agreement with DND and to expedite the remediation process.”

The scope of the engineering work will include environmental assessment, site-specific risk assessment, development of remediation objectives, treatability studies and remediation design. The work is scheduled to begin within the next month. 

PFAS are manmade substances found in many consumer and industrial products, including firefighting foam. Past use of the airport lands for firefighter training between the early 1970s and mid-1990s has been identified as the main source of PFAS on the airport property.  Although firefighting foam containing PFAS was an accepted practice and was in accordance with regulations at that time, its use is very limited today.

Since 2017, the city has been working collaboratively with DND, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and the local health unit to support ongoing testing and monitoring for PFAS in Trout Lake, Lees Creek and residential wells in close proximity to the North Bay Jack Garland Airport lands.

The level of PFAS detected in the city’s municipal water supply remains significantly lower than drinking water screening values set out by Health Canada and the interim guidance level provided by the MECP. A long-standing drinking water advisory for Lees Creek remains in place as well as a fish consumption advisory for fish from the creek issued by the MECP.

Featured image: The fire management headquarters at North Bay's Jack Garland Airport. (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry / Twitter)