History of Nobel’s Water Treatment Plants

Subsections:

Nobel Water Treatment Plant Sourced from Guncotton Bay, 1991
Parry Sound fails 1/4 provincial inspection
McDougall fails 2/4 parts of provincial inspection
Water Records
McDougall connects to Parry Sound’s water for $5,666,013
Local wells dry up in result of blasting
Highway 400 bypasses CIL/DIL properties

While CIL was in operation, they provided potable water to the village of Nobel. Once CIL closed, discussions began regarding a new water system.

According to lay knowledge, discussions and lobbying efforts for grant money from the provincial government for a new water treatment system began in 1985 and continued until about 1988.

They needed to make a case to get funding, which meant they needed to increase the number of homes that would be serviced. The municipality hired someone to test the municipal and private wells.

Apparently, the tests revealed coliform and high levels of fecal contamination, presumably due to septic systems and the decay of vegetation in the ground water. What else was tested? What exactly did the results show? How sophisticated were the testing methods?

Did they also test for heavy metals or chemicals? What about lead azide or lead styphnate, common compounds used in military explosives? Or residual chemicals from oil-based liquid dynamite that was mixed with fertilizers?

I have been told that the provincial government granted 92% of the funding for this, which was more than they would typically provide.

Construction for the new water treatment facility began in 1989 and it came into service in 1991.

The old Nobel water treatment plant was located on Murray Point Road and sourced from Georgian Bay — less than 600 metres away from Guncotton Bay.

Image below: West Parry Sound Geography Network ARCGIS map; show the distance between Guncotton Bay and Murray Point Road.

Refer to the following section, Nobel Connects to Parry Sound Water + HWY 400, for more information regarding McDougall’s failed provincial water treatment inspection in 2000.

It’s 2000 and the Walkerton E.Coli crisis hits Ontario.

The province and the MOE are thrown for a loop. It turns out that nearly half of all water treatment plants across Ontario are not up to standard. The government begins investing in updating systems.

It was discovered in the provincial inspection that Parry Sound’s water treatment plant had problems because it was taking in surface water but was not treating it properly. It failed 1/4 parts in the Ontario Problem Water Works inspection¹, which was:

1. Where groundwater was used it was not chlorinated, [and] surface [water] was not treated with coagulation, flocculation or filtration.

The water treatment plant in the Township of McDougall failed 2/4 parts of the Ontario Problem Water Works inspection, according to an article in the Globe and Mail in 2000², as follows:

1. Insufficient number of chemical or bacteriological samples being taken and analysed.
2. Plants had not adequately maintained their disinfection equipment (no alarm signal for a chlorination failure or no back-up system in the event of failure).

Of course, one may find this knowledge alarming as the water that was sourced for the McDougall water treatment plant on Murray Point Road was only 600 metres from what was once known as Guncotton Bay; where tonnes of guncotton process waste water entered into Georgian Bay and munitions such as grenades and artillery shells were dumped. Until now, this connection has not been made. Therefore the question, “have local residents of Nobel been drinking “treated” toxic chemicals due to CIL’s munitions productions?” has not been publicly asked — at least to my knowledge.

Following the failed inspection and the new regulations imposed by the province of Ontario after the Walkerton Crisis, McDougall Township began the process of upgrading their water treatment system, which ultimately connected 235 households in McDougall to Parry Sound’s water treatment plant³.

Image below: McDougall map highlighting the Nobel water distribution system (confirmed by McDougall’s Environmental Services Supervisor).

Note that the distribution system extends only to the properties that are in closest proximity to the old CIL/DIL lands and around Guncotton Bay, not in between Nobel and Parry Sound, with the exception of Big Sound Road. There are no residential properties on Avro Arrow Road.

When Townships upgrade their water systems, and local residents stop using their wells, Townships have, in the past, allowed local residents to maintain their private wells for non-potable use (i.e. car washing or lawn watering). Often Townships will make an inspection to ensure that the two systems are physically separated to ensure that there is no cross contamination. Did this happen in McDougall? Were the private wells tested? Would the results have indicated heavy metals, chemicals or contamination that could have migrated from the CIL property? If so, are people that have chosen not to pay to hook up to town’s water drinking toxic water?

To test private wells for contamination, you must hire a private lab and specify which kind of testing you would like performed. The Parry Sound local health unit only tests your well water for coliform and E. coli, unlike current up-to-date water treatment plants that undergo robust and regular water testing.

This means that when you test your well water at the local health unit (for free) your water is only being tested for bacteria — not heavy metals such as lead, or other harmful chemicals. Of course, this could give you the impression to the owner that your water is safe, when in reality harmful contaminants may exist.

Ontario Regulation 170/03 in Section 13 outlines information regarding records retention. Based on the size of the municipal water system and the type of record involved, retention times vary between 2 years, 6 years and 15 years.

According to Sec. 13 (1)1(ii) of Reg. 170/03, microbiological testing results for large and small municipal residential water systems must be retained for at least two years. Sec. 13 (2)1(i) requires large municipal residential water systems to retain chemical testing results for six years, and Sec. 13(3)1(i) requires small municipal residential water systems to retain chemical testing results for 15 years. A large municipal water system serves more than 100 private residences, while small municipal residential water systems serve 100 or fewer private residences.

When municipalities are given the results of their water quality testing the results are also forwarded to the MOE and Climate Change (MOECC). Therefore, the MOECC should have the records you may want to access, if a municipality no longer has them.

While the Tony Agnello Water Treatment Plant in Parry Sound would be considered a large municipal system, would McDougall’s water treatment system that was located on Murray Point Road be considered a small municipal water system? If so, the water records from 2002-current (15 years) should still exist at the Township and the MOECC. What would they show if you filed for a Freedom of Information request? Would they indicate heavy metals or contamination - that has possibly migrated from the CIL properties? Would, by chance, the municipality have kept results from earlier years? These documents are public and should be freely accessible.

The Township of McDougall’s records are kept at the MOECC office in North Bay.

Year 2002 is:

• • • two years after Walkerton and when the township failed their inspection,
    • two years prior to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s response to McDougall updating Nobel’s water system,
    • three years prior to CIL proposing a severance for their property (when they were allowed to sell the land that had incineration and landfill sites),
    • around the same time as reported sightings of government vehicles on/near the CIL property, and
    • one year before the Department of Defence announced a $10-million scavenger hunt for remnants of toxic stockpiles and so-called warfare agents on Canada’s lands and in Canada’s waters.

For those that wish to pursue this matter further or access water records for the purposes of advancing this research, the Ontario Regulation 459/00 was issued shortly after the Walkerton incident and came into force in August 2000. Ontario Regulation 170/03 replaced Reg. 459/00 and came into force in May 2003. Reg. 170/03, as amended since its introduction, is currently in force. The full version of Reg. 170/03 can be found on the Internet at the following link:

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/030170?search=170%2F03

The text of the old Reg. 459/00 can be found at the following link:

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/000459?search=459%2F00

Current provincial regulations related to municipal drinking water systems have been issued under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act (2002). The Act can be found at the following link:

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/02s32?search=safe+drinking+water+act

Furthermore, the provincial Chief Drinking Water Inspector issues an annual report documenting the performance of all municipal drinking water systems in Ontario. The majority of the information contained in the reports is based on the findings of the annual MOECC inspections of each system and the water quality testing results provided to the MOECC. The most current report can be found at the following link:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/chief-drinking-water-inspector-annual-report-2015-2016

Assuming the Canadian Environmental Assessment Registry documents were interpreted correctly:

• • • In 2004, the Registry responded to McDougall Township’s request to upgrade the Nobel water treatment system⁴ (four years after their failed inspection and Walkerton).
    • In 2005, they looked at hooking up Nobel’s water distribution system to Parry Sound’s water treatment tower⁵.

At the end of 2006, Nobel hooked up to Parry Sound’s water treatment distribution system. The project cost both the federal and provincial governments $1,888,671 each for the project. The municipality invested the remaining third. The total project cost was $5,666,013⁶.

How much did the municipal, provincial and federal government know about CIL and the environment prior to having residents hook up to Parry Sound’s water? How much did local residents have to pay in taxes for this extension? Did the municipality decommission local private wells when residents hooked up to town water? Are they still accessible for testing?

According to a local resident, after the blasting was done for the extension of Parry Sound’s water system to Nobel, local wells dried up⁷. According to the McDougall mayor Dale Robinson, there was an investigation. Details of this investigation have not been researched.

What do the results of this investigation show? Did the blasting affect the water table? Did environmental contamination migrate into the water table or aquifer? Did it migrate into Georgian Bay?

It was a few years ago that an individual from the Parry Sound area pointed out that he found it suspicious that Highway 400, which opened in 2010, went around the old CIL and DIL properties, rather than the shorter, and therefore normally less expensive, route straight through them.

Did Highway 400 intentionally bypass the CIL and DIL properties in Nobel? Was it avoided because there was concern about disrupting pre-existing environmental contamination or buried hazardous waste? What else was happening with the CIL/DIL properties from 2000 to 2010?

Yellow stars indicate few of many monitoring wells on CIL and DIL’s property. Find out the locations of over 60 reported monitoring wells that had been installed since 2010 in the section CIL/DIL Lands 2005-Present.