Tiny exploring ‘forever chemical’ PFAS detection for municipal water systems
By: Derek Howard, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: MidlandToday.ca, Dec 09, 2024
Council of Tiny Township were recently given an update on what source water protections were for the municipality, as well as risk management from their delegated official.
Severn Sound Environmental Association source water protection manager Melissa Carruthers provided a slideshow presentation on the township’s drinking water, stating that a mid-year deadline identified 11 existing risk management plans in the municipality. “Just because those plans are completed doesn’t mean we’re done,” said Carruthers, explaining that continued development application reviews and potential provincial lowering of thresholds could result in changes to the plans. “The work’s not done, but we’ve met a major milestone.”
Water protection was implemented through policies from the local source protection plan for each region. During the meeting, a map revealed roughly 20 municipal supply well systems, each displaying two key vulnerable areas of a wellhead protection area and an intake protection zone. “These areas are mapped based on the time of travel it takes from the groundwater to reach the municipal well,” said Carruthers, “with the furthest being 25 years; we don’t map forever, there is a confined time frame.”
Carruthers also pointed out additional protections placed on observed low nitrate concentrations at the Lafontaine well supply, which were erred on the side of caution for drinking water.
When pressed further by Coun. Dave Brunelle on nitrates in Lafontaine, public works director Tim Leitch replied that the levels remained “fairly stable at this point” and provided additional peace of mind for residents on initiatives over the decade to minimize nitrate impact. “We’ve changed how we pump our systems down there, so we’re blending our water because we do have one very good well and a couple that have nitrates,” said Leitch. “By blending, we can reduce the nitrate levels down to an acceptable amount. “I don’t like to jinx anything, but we are seeing leveling off of that data which is a positive thing,” Leitch added.
Coun. Kelly Helowka, a member of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, raised the topic of testing local water sources for the ‘forever chemical’ PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, measured at four-parts-per-trillion), suggesting that if found then Tiny could explore legal action as seen with other recent global PFAS lawsuit settlements amounting to billions of dollars.
Mayor Dave Evans later inquired about the difference between residential fertilizers and commercial fertilizers (defined by Carruthers as common off-the-shelf brands which could be purchased), but also asked about PFAS detection within the program. “Internally, we are looking at starting to include that as part of our measurables; but at this point we are not,” said Leitch. “If we do start to monitor it… that we’re using proper data, we’re using proper information, so that we don’t have any public confusion.”
The drinking water source protection update presentation can be viewed on the agenda page on the Township of Tiny website.
Archives of council meetings are available to view on the township’s YouTube channel.