National Defence Committee on Dec. 5th, 2024

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

It's a tough question. That's why we say it's an emerging contaminant, because regulations across the world are not converging yet. In the United States, they have a very strong regulation now, and two specific PFAS from the legacy PFAS are regulated at four—so PFOA and PFOS are regulated at four—and there are three others that are regulated at 10. Health Canada has a different approach: It uses a sum of 25 PFAS, and the sum of those 25 PFAS must be below 30. However, Health Canada's is a recommendation; it's not a true guideline, as in the United States. Europe has a similar guideline, but the summation for 20 PFAS should be below 100. It's a bit confusing. The regulations are not entirely comparable. In the end, the U.S. ends up being a bit more severe and strict than the Canadian ones, but I think that what Health Canada's proposing is relatively safe.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

What are people in the area of La Baie and Bagotville doing to address this problem? Do you have to just drill new wells? Is there any way to treat your water?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

The underground water is contaminated. If you build a new well, you're just going to tap the same water from a different well.

I think the city initially minimized the issue and didn't recognize the problem, so it said the water was safe to drink, but it put in $12 million to treat the water. It was the same message. It was saying, “You can drink the water safely, but we'll invest $12 million to treat it, just in case.”

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you. We're going to have to unfortunately leave the answer there. We appreciate it.

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Simard. The floor is yours for six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, it isn't $12 million, it's $15 million.

I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Sauvé. I have heard you in a lot of media in my region, Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean, talking about the situation in La Baie. I would like to review some of the details with you.

The information came out publicly on July 11, 2023—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Go ahead. I stopped the clock. Don't worry about it.

Are we good to go? Okay.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

The information came out publicly on July 11, 2023. I know that because it was myself and the leader of my party, Yves‑François Blanchet, who made it public.

At what point did you give this information to the federal government?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

The previous summer, in 2022, I informed the Quebec Ministry of the Environment. After that, I would have to look at my datebook to give you the exact dates, but it was at about Christmas 2022 or January 2023 when I had meetings with the people from Health Canada and the Department of National Defence. So Health Canada and the Department of National Defence were informed between December 2022 and January 2023.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That sounds like what you said in the Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean media. You said you had informed the Quebec government in October 2022. If I understand correctly, you then informed the federal departments, in early 2023.

Why did so much time pass, between early 2023 and July, without the government seeing fit to inform the public in the La Baie area, where 8,000 people live? I would note that you have said publicly that you, personally, would not drink the water in La Baie.

How do you explain the more than six months that passed before the public was informed of this situation?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

There are two things getting mixed up here.

In the summer of 2022, I informed the ministry of the environment that the concentration of PFAS in La Baie was abnormally high. This was not in the paper that had already been published. I knew that I would be working on a paper that would be published very shorty, but I wanted to inform the ministry, because this was a question of public health.

However, at that time, the quality criteria for PFAS in the United States and Health Canada's recommendations about this had not yet been released. So we were in a situation where a water system contained a higher concentration of these substances than the others, but we had no threshold for making comparisons and stating that this was a disaster.

However, that information was released in February and March 2023. Once Health Canada launched its consultation to seek comments on its recommended standard of 30 nanograms per litre, stating specifically that the United States recommended four nanograms per litre, it became apparent that we were looking at a site where the proposed standard had been exceeded.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

So a fairly significant amount of time passed before—

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

There was a delay between when Health Canada was informed of the situation and when it became apparent that the situation exceeded the standard proposed by Health Canada. During that time, people were not informed.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

So the public was not informed. I assume that the government took this seriously, since it allocated $15.5 million for a temporary solution.

As well, on this subject, I believe it is impossible to completely clean the water tables affected. Other sources of water will have to be found for this population.

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

Technically, it is definitely possible. There could be a system to pump and treat the water, but the costs would be incalculable. We would have to add some zeros to the $15 million figure. So that is not a viable option.

The fact that these are nicknamed forever chemicals tells us that PFAS will be sticking around in the water table for a very long time. The alternative would be to get water from a well a long way away that is not contaminated and pipe it in to La Baie.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If I accept what you are saying, the permanent solution would be to find another source of water for the people in La Baie.

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

That is probably the least expensive solution.

It is possible to treat the water, and that is what is being done right now. A permanent plant, not a temporary one, could be installed to treat the water. However, the costs would be high. As well, the type of PFAS found in the water in La Baie is unfortunately more difficult to treat and eliminate.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That may be what explains why the $15.5 million that was to be used by the City of Saguenay to meet the public's needs until 2028 will unfortunately run out in July of this year. It is because the filters have to be changed six times more often than was estimated. The City of Saguenay is therefore looking at a liabilitiy of $7 million per year.

Do you think there might have been a source of contaminants other than the Bagotville military base?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

Of the 400 sites we sampled throughout Quebec, five or six showed contamination rates that were high enough to call for intervention. Often, these were landfill sites, firefighter training sites or airports, for example. In this case, it is a military base. Are there landfill sites nearby? Certainly landfill sites could cause contamination in the past. It is not impossible for there to have been a landfill site that is contributing to a form of contamination. But landfill sites include a lot of old PFAS. The PFAS found in the water in La Baie, however, do not share that profile. They really have a profile that corresponds more to the substances used in firefighting foam.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

It's Madam Mathyssen for six minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing.

What we've heard in past testimony is that for each contaminated site, the steward of that site has full control over the site. In the case of DND, they are responsible for whatever happens on that site, for testing and for communications and all of that.

You are experts in your field. In your determination.... We have base commanders, but we have environmental officers who are making these decisions for the health and safety of their people. What kinds of qualifications are truly needed to be able to do that work, to determine that a site—a Bagotville or what have you—is actually safe? I don't know if you know, but are those environmental officers trained to have that level of expertise?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

Well, the easy way to do this is if we have legacy contaminants for which we have clear guidelines. Then it's easy. We measure how much is in the drinking water and if we are above or below the guideline. Then it's clear.

In the case of something that's not regulated, it's a lot more complex and difficult, but once you have a recommendation from Health Canada that has all the required experts who looked at the issue, then you can compare your data to what is recommended by Health Canada. That's if you're looking just at drinking water. Of course, if you want to transfer drinking water, then it's a question that's a lot more complicated: Is it safe to have a garden and grow your own vegetables if you'll be using that water?

If you're comparing drinking water to something where some official body has made that level, then it's relatively straightforward.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Oftentimes, that amount of information seems to be going one way in terms of the communication on auditing and oversight. The issue with a lot of DND sites is that because of national security and what have you, there isn't a greater oversight from that larger community of experts like you. Have you run into that issue? Do you believe that we need to have better oversights built into the federal contaminated sites plan?

[Dr. Sébastien Sauvé]

Well, I don't know all the details of those oversights. The best example I can see is that if I could have access to all of the firefighting chemicals that have been used at the site, it would be a lot easier to answer the earlier question of whether or not it's definitely traced back to the base.

That information is not available, and I don't think using access to information with regard to the military is working. There's nothing strategic or tactical about the type of firefighting foams that have been used. It's mostly protection from liability. It's not so much a tactical question.

[Dr. Feiyue Wang]

To add to that, as I mentioned, I think that in this country we have a lot of expertise: from academia, from the consulting industry and from the government. You have ECCC and Health Canada. When we talk about PFAS or legacy contaminants, we have a lot of expertise.

It's more about how we get that expertise involved. Again, the oversighting with DND sites is understandable, but if there's a way that could build into some kind of mechanism, I think that would go a long way to help.