01-40_WC_149_JUL-AUG26_PT - Flipbook - Page 22
ENVIRONMENT
paragraph 21 of the decision, the court stated that
“the failure to warn the neighbouring residents that
their drinking water was or may be contaminated by
PFAS chemicals may be found to ‘offend the court’s
sense of decency.’” Accordingly, punitive damages
were certified on the basis that if you own or operate
a PFAS-contaminated site, and you know or ought to
WATER CANADA: With the 30 ng/L drinking water
xxx
know that this material could be migrating offsite
into residential drinking water, you shouldn’t wait
before disclosing that possibility to residents. The
court emphasized the words “could” and “ought”
multiple times. This sets an important legal precedent
for other similar class action claims and creates a very
wide net for potential liability for additional punitive
damages apart from property value claims.
WATER CANADA: Does that mean a legal duty to
disclose is triggered only if contamination breaks
a specific threshold, like Health Canada’s 30 ng/L
objective, or do they have to report even if it’s lower?
MICHAEL: We don’t accept the Health Canada 30 ng/L
threshold or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment 70 ng/L threshold as a get-out-of-jail-free
card. There is no scientific proof that any level of
this contamination is safe. In fact, if you read the
Health Canada Guidelines in full, they state that the
objective we need to achieve is ALARA—As Low As
Reasonably Achievable. Period. Not 30 ng/L, not 70
ng/L.
NATHAN: We do not subscribe to the government’s
reliance on these various guidelines to claim there is
a “safe” or “acceptable” minimum level of PFAS in
drinking water. The March 2025 Health Canada and
Environment Canada Final State of PFAS Report
reports explicitly states that PFAS causes severe
health issues at lower concentrations than previously understood, that there are over 100 federal sites
nationwide with confirmed/suspected PFAS contamination due to historical AFFF use, many of which are
sites with residential communities relying on private
groundwater wells in close proximity. The fact that
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the federal guidelines are 30 ng/L, while Ontario provincial guidelines sit at 70 ng/L, neither of which are
established on any health-based criteria, shows how
arbitrary this is. Government reliance on conflicting guidelines to decide whether or not to provide
bottled water, install PFAS filtration, or disclose any
information of potential drinking water to residential
communities is entirely inappropriate.
WATER C AN ADA • JULY/AUGUS T 2026
objective and the new federal restrictions arriving
this June, do you expect a spike in “contamination
stigma” lawsuits over falling property values near
affected aquifers?
MICHAEL: Yes, but it doesn’t actually stem from the
regulations themselves. It is driven by growing public
awareness of the problem, including both national
media coverage and federal reporting on PFAS-contaminated hotspots sites nationwide. Frankly, these
new regulations coming into effect on June 30th are
not that significant in my books. They add a couple
of prohibited substances to a forbidden list, but big
deal. Most of those substances have already stopped
being imported or used anyway. They don’t do anything particularly exciting. The real driver is that the
public is waking up to the threat of potential PFAS
contamination in their drinking water, particularly
around airports and military bases, which is exacerbating contamination stigma and impacting property
value in such communities
WATER CANADA: From a stigma perspective, if a
municipality installs a multimillion-dollar carbon
filtration system that brings PFAS levels back to zero,
does that property stigma damage disappear, or is the
market value permanently altered?
MICHAEL: The market value is permanently altered,
full stop. Treatment systems and while helpful, filters
are not infallible and do not completely remove
PFAS from drinking water. If the source aquifer feeding your home is severely contaminated by PFAS, it
is never a good thing to just have a mechanical filter
sitting between you and toxic water. Properties in
that category will absolutely continue to suffer from
valuation stigma.
NATHAN: To double down on the reality of property
stigma: imagine trying to sell your home and having
to disclose to a potential buyer: “The house is lovely,
but the military or government officials are going to
come by every couple of weeks to drop off bottled
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