Neighbours angry over NRC silence on water woes

People living in a subdivision besidethe National Research Council'sfiresafety testing facility in MississippiMills, Ont., say they're frustrated and angry to learn NRC employees were told to stop drinking water nearly two years before residents were informed.

• NRC employees told to drink bottled water 2 years before neighbours warned

According to documents released under the Access to Information Act, workers were told in an emailfrom the facility managerdated Jan. 14, 2014, that "faucet water at the Fire Lab U-96 is not to be consumed for drinkingpurposes."

But it wasn't until December 2015 that residents of RamsayMeadowswere told their water had been contaminated with chemicals often found in firefighting foams.

Perfluoroalkylated substances, or PFAS, werediscovered in the groundwater fromdrill sites close to the facility's border during an environmental assessment in 2013.

Bought house from NRC employee

"There is not a prayer that we would have purchased this house," said TomBanfalvi, whomoved to Ramsay Meadowsin February 2015.

To make matters worse,Banfalvisaid heand his wifepurchasedtheir home from an employee at the NRC laboratory who would have known about the contamination.

Banfalvisays the employeecontacted him after news of the contaminated water became public, denying any insider knowledge.

"There's no way I would have bought," Banfalvi said. "Nosane person would have.I wouldn't be living here."

Banfalvi said he's waiting to see whether the federal government takes responsibility for the problem before deciding on his next move. He said hehasn't heard from the NRC, or from Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan, who has personally contacted some of his neighbours.

"As you can imagine, it's upsetting, it's frustrating," saidBanfalvi.

Home values plummet

A retired couple concerned that identifying them would make their property harder to selltold CBC they tried to list their house for sale, but the real estate agencythey contacted refused.

The couplesaid theirproperty, once valued at $460,000, is now worth afraction of that.

The retireesnow get their water through a filtration system paid for by the NRC, a gesture they said they now see as an appeasement.

Atanother home, aretired woman in a similar situationwaswateringtomatoplants in herbackyard garden using water from her well.

"Look what I'm doing!" she exclaimed. "I don't even know if this is safe, but what else can I do?"

"We can't pick up and leave," said the woman. "The value of our house has really fallen."

'It's disappointing'

Matt Bertrand, wholives in the community with his wife and two young daughters, said the NRC should have kept residents informed.

I don't know if they've so much lied but they've definitelykept things under wraps. They definitely haven't been as open as they should have.- Matt Bertrand

"It's disappointing, for sure. You'd think if you were concerned about the safety of your own employees, the proper thing to do would be to let the residents in the general areaknow.

"It's not like we're 10 kilometresaway. We're right next door. If the water's no good there, chances are it's no good here."

So far,Bertrand'swellwater has tested negative forPFAS, with the next testscheduled for Tuesday. Nevertheless, the family isdrinking bottled water and using a reverse-osmosis filtration system.

Bertrand said his family wasalready planning to move when they learned of the contamination.

"That's going to be something we have to test. We're going to list our house a little bit lower than what we had planned."

Asked if he feels that residents in Ramsay Meadows werelied to by the NRC, Bertrand hesitated.

"I don't know if they've so much lied but they've definitelykept things under wraps. They definitely haven't been as open as they should have."

His neighbour,Tom Banfalvi,agreed.

"AsCanadians,we hope that our politicians would help us, as opposed to stand in our way," he said."Is there more hidden, more that we should be made aware of, as opposed to swept under carpets?"