Water

The North Bay Water Files

North Bay is the only known drinking water system in Ontario that consistently exceeds Health Canada’s PFAS objective, and the City is now designing the treatment meant to remove it.

This file sets out the public record on all additives and contaminants in our water. Every number has a public source, listed at the end.

The treatment decision is a chance to win five things at once for North Bay water, and three of them do not have to wait for Jacobs Consultancy Canada designs, construction and funding from the Department of National Defence (DND).

This file grew out of the Northwatch candidates’ meeting on October 4, where residents came out to talk about PFAS, flooding and sewage. Thank you to Northwatch and its partners for organizing it.

What is in the water

Water entering the distribution system measured 64.2, 66.0, 47.0 and 49.8 ng/L across four quarterly samples. The federal objective is 30. Those totals cover the 11 PFAS the City reports. Health Canada’s objective counts 25, so the full total can only be the same or higher.

DND notified the City in December 2016. That is almost ten years.

The contamination began with firefighting foam used around the airport and military lands more than 50 years ago. PFAS in Lees Creek was documented by 2012. Fourteen years later, measurable PFAS is still being delivered to North Bay homes.

How unusual that is

One of Canada’s largest published tap water datasets covered 463 samples from 376 Quebec municipalities. The median total PFAS was 2 ng/L, and the 95th percentile was only 13 ng/L. Higher one-off results exist elsewhere in Canada, but North Bay’s treated water has stayed around 50 to 65 ng/L year after year: high concentrations, delivered persistently through a municipal system.

North Bay has the highest tested PFAS level of any Canadian city over 50,000 people, and it is still sending that water to the tap. You may hear officials use parts per trillion. It is the same measure: 1 ng/L is 1 part per trillion.

Safe on what basis?

If you hear a city councillor say the water is safe, ask on what basis. Safe to bathe in and wash your dishes with? Yes, Health Canada says so. Safe to drink depends on which of two numbers you use and what the definition is even based on.

Health Canada: 30 ng/L. An objective published in August 2024 for the sum of 25 PFAS. It stays in place until Health Canada publishes updated guidelines. It is based on what labs can measure and treatment can achieve, and Health Canada recommends going as low as reasonably achievable. It is not enforceable; provinces decide whether to adopt it.

Ontario: 70 ng/L. An interim advice value introduced in 2017 for the sum of 11 PFAS. It is guidance applied where PFAS has been found, and it is not in Ontario’s drinking water regulation. In its 2024 report, the province said it was still considering the federal objective.

Interim means a temporary number issued until a proper standard is set. It has no legal force and no deadline for being replaced. Ontario’s has been in place for nine years, and anyone calling the water safe is relying on it.

Thirty is not a safety line

Health Canada’s 30 ng/L is not a toxicological line below which PFAS becomes harmless. Other authorities regulate the compounds that dominate North Bay’s water far more strictly.

United States: legally enforceable limits of 4 ng/L each for PFOS and PFOA, with health-based goals of zero.
Sweden: since January 1, 2026, PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFNA combined may not exceed 4 ng/L.
Denmark: 2 ng/L for four PFAS combined.

Those four compounds totalled at least about 40 to 57 ng/L in North Bay’s 2025 treated water, before counting any PFNA below the lab’s detection limit. That is roughly 10 to 14 times Sweden’s limit. PFOS alone averaged about 30.5 ng/L, against the American limit of 4. The standards are built differently, but 30 is clearly not the most protective serious benchmark.

What Health Canada says about these compounds

Health Canada names PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFNA among the most toxicologically potent PFAS. Where they dominate water approaching or exceeding 30 ng/L, it says “significant mitigative actions (such as treatment) should be considered as a precautionary measure.” Northwatch’s summary of 2023 testing puts PFOS at about half of North Bay’s total.

Health Canada also advises that if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or preparing infant formula and are concerned about PFAS in your water, you may wish to use another source, such as bottled water, or install a certified filter.

Nobody should have to declare themselves concerned before government tells them plainly what is in their water. Public health communication should state the exposure, state the uncertainty and reduce the exposure. The burden of solving a municipal water problem should not fall on households buying filters.

What other communities did

Here are three other Canadian communities whose water tested above 45 ng/L.

La Baie, in Saguenay, Québec: the city put filters on its wells.
Slemon Park, PEI: residents were given filters.
Saint-Donat, Québec: the town is switching to a new source, with a plant planned for 2027.

In each, something was done for the people drinking the water. In North Bay, people on City water have been offered no filter and no advisory. The advice on offer is a web page on how to buy your own.

That is not acceptable. In 2021 the Canadian Association of Journalists gave the City its 2020 Code of Silence Award for government secrecy, and our reputation cannot afford another title like it. Residents near the base have already gone to court over their wells, in a $105 million class action naming National Defence and the City. The suit, which has not been certified, alleges the City and National Defence failed to adequately warn residents about possible PFAS in the drinking water.

The treatment plan

The City has $8.25 million to pilot and design PFAS treatment at the water plant, and no money yet to build or run it.

The money. In December 2025, National Defence and the City signed an agreement worth $8,249,214 over two years for a six-month pilot and the detailed design. National Defence pays 97 percent ($8,001,738) and the City pays 3 percent ($247,476). Council approved it on December 9, 2025.

The consultant. Jacobs Consultancy Canada is doing the work. On February 24, 2026, Council added $6,636,882 to Jacobs’ contract for the design and pilot, as a single-source extension rather than a new competition. Jacobs’ contract has grown from $4,987,238.42 in 2021 to $19,067,658.42, including a further $4,346,340 for airport remediation in August 2026.

The timeline. The design is meant to support a later request to Ottawa for construction and operating money. The present schedule does not reach a tender-ready package until the end of 2027. Council approved the pilot more than seven months ago, and the pilot runs six months. So has it started, and when does it end?

The City’s position. In the February 2026 report asking Council for the pilot money, staff wrote that the City’s drinking water “is consistently below the interim advice value.” That is Ontario’s 70, the looser number.

That is not urgent enough. Granular activated carbon and ion exchange are established PFAS removal technologies. Pilot testing should optimize North Bay’s permanent system, while engineering, regulatory preparation and procurement proceed at the same time instead of waiting behind it.

I haven’t been able to confirm whether the six-month pilot has started or finished, so my first question on Council will be where it stands. Then I will move that Council require a public critical-path schedule identifying the additional engineering, regulatory and procurement resources needed to reach a tender-ready package as soon as the pilot allows. That means January 31, 2027 if the pilot is done, and the earliest workable date if it is not. Every genuine technical or regulatory barrier to that deadline should be identified publicly. I want Council to publish quarterly updates on the design, and the pilot results as soon as they exist.

Is reverse osmosis on the table?

Not in anything the City has published. In late 2025, the City told CBC that if the pilot was funded, it would test three technologies: ion exchange, granular activated carbon and a new absorbent material. The City’s November 2025 report to Council describes the same plan, a six-month pilot testing several PFAS treatment media. Reverse osmosis is not on that list.

This month, Councillor Chris Mayne told BayToday that reverse osmosis “will likely be the recommendation” because of the volume of water North Bay draws, and he estimated the cost at $40 million. No public report contains that recommendation or that estimate. If Council has seen pilot results, residents should see them too.

Jacobs’ treatability study for the plant has not been released. In April 2025, the City said its findings were confidential because of negotiations with National Defence. The City reported those negotiations finalized on November 28, 2025, and the study is still not public.

Health Canada names three technologies as the most effective, each above 90 percent removal for certain PFAS. Conventional treatment does not work, and North Bay’s existing membranes filter out particles and microbes, not dissolved PFAS.

Granular activated carbon: removes nearly all PFAS for a period, until the carbon must be replaced. It holds longer-chain compounds best; short-chain PFAS break through sooner.
Ion exchange resin: also removes nearly all PFAS for a period set by the resin chosen. It favours longer-chain compounds and sulfonates, and usually costs more than carbon.
Reverse osmosis: removes PFAS of every chain length, typically more than 90 percent. It also strips out minerals, and about 20 percent of the water fed to it comes out as a concentrated waste stream.

PFOS is about half of North Bay’s PFAS. Together with PFHxS and PFOA, long-chain compounds made up about 84 percent of the City’s 2025 totals: the kind carbon and resin handle best. The short-chain compounds the City measures, PFHxA and PFHpA, made up the other 16 percent, and those break through carbon sooner. The City does not report the shortest ones in Health Canada’s 25, such as PFBA and PFBS, which carbon holds worst. That is the real case for reverse osmosis. Still, the claim that only reverse osmosis can properly remove PFAS does not hold as a general rule. Health Canada says a treatment train of more than one technology may be needed, and pilot data should decide it.

Large-scale reverse osmosis for PFAS is rare. Brunswick County, North Carolina, is finishing a US$167.3 million project that adds low-pressure reverse osmosis and doubles its plant to 48 million gallons a day, about 182 million litres. It expects the system running by the end of 2026. Next door, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority chose granular activated carbon and reported no detectable PFAS, including GenX, after its filters came online in 2022.

The volume question. Volume is a reason for caution about reverse osmosis. About 20 percent of the water fed through it comes out as concentrated waste. At North Bay’s average of 20 million litres a day, that is roughly 4 million litres a day of PFAS concentrate, and no public plan says where it would go. Spent carbon and resin also need high-temperature reactivation or destruction so the PFAS is not released again.

The target. Mayne expects treatment to bring levels down to between 5 and 15 ng/L. PFOS makes up about half of North Bay’s PFAS, so at 15, PFOS alone would be around 7.5, nearly double the American limit of 4. Health Canada says to go as low as reasonably achievable, and North Bay should hold the design to that.

What Council should ask for: which PFAS broke through each pilot unit and when, for all 25 compounds in Health Canada’s objective; the full lifecycle cost of each option, including media replacement and waste disposal; and for reverse osmosis, where the concentrate goes and what must be added back to the water.

What the City adds today

North Bay’s water is filtered through membranes and disinfected with ultraviolet light and chlorine, then dosed with three more chemicals before it reaches your tap.

The plant on Lakeside Drive went into service in February 2010. It can treat 79,500 cubic metres a day, and an average of about 20 million litres runs through it daily. The City’s 2025 annual water report lists four treatment chemicals:

Sodium hypochlorite: chlorine, for disinfection at the plant and at re-chlorination stations around the city.
Sodium hydroxide: caustic soda, to raise the pH.
Hydrofluorosilicic acid: the source of the added fluoride.
Control Max: a product the report lists for corrosion control.

Corrosion control

Corrosion control keeps lead and other metals in pipes and household plumbing from dissolving into the water. North Bay’s plumbing samples have exceeded Ontario’s lead standard of 10 micrograms per litre at least once in every year from 2022 to 2025. The worst result was 29 micrograms per litre in September 2022; in 2025, one of 88 household samples exceeded, at 19.4 micrograms per litre in October.

The City has not published what its corrosion control chemical is. Every City water report I found that mentions it, from 2015 to 2025, gives only the trade name, Control Max: no ingredients, no dose, no target residual. Residents should not need a records request to learn what is in their water, and the City’s own records page says requests normally take up to 45 business days.

The approach has changed over time. In 2004, before the new plant, the City adjusted pH with soda ash and listed no corrosion inhibitor. Control Max first appears in the City’s chemical list for 2015; the 2014 list has only sodium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite and hydrofluosilicic acid. The reports do not say why it was added, but in 2014 two samples from the City’s water mains exceeded the lead standard, at 19 and 31 micrograms per litre.

Residents have asked me whether this chemical is more dangerous than fluoride. Nobody can answer that until the City names it.

What is usually in a product like Control Max. Until the City says, the best guide is what corrosion inhibitors are generally made of. The US Environmental Protection Agency says the most common are phosphate-based. Health Canada names the main types:

Orthophosphate. Phosphoric acid or a phosphate salt. It builds a thin film inside pipes and plumbing that reduces how much lead dissolves into the water. Health Canada puts typical residuals at 0.5 to 3.0 mg/L, measured as phosphoric acid, and says the film forms best on lead between pH 7 and 8.
Blended phosphate. Orthophosphate mixed with polyphosphate, which keeps iron and manganese dissolved so they do not discolour the water. EPA says blends run from 5 to 70 percent orthophosphate. The trade-off is lead: EPA says polyphosphates can bind lead and copper and hold them in the water, raising the risk of exposure, and Ontario’s design guidelines say polyphosphate blends “have been documented in some cases to cause lead leaching in domestic plumbing.”
Zinc orthophosphate. Orthophosphate with zinc added, usually one part zinc to between one and ten parts phosphate by weight, according to EPA. Health Canada lists it with orthophosphate as the inhibitors most often reported as successful for lead and copper.
Sodium silicate. A basic compound that raises pH as it goes in and adds sodium. Health Canada says silicate alone has not been shown conclusively to reduce lead or copper, and EPA says it can take high doses.

North Bay already raises pH with caustic soda, which Health Canada calls one of the most effective ways to cut lead and copper. Control Max is a second product added on top. Most inhibitors are phosphate-based, so that is the likeliest answer; only the City or its supplier can say which type it is, whether it has polyphosphate or zinc, and how much goes in.

Other cities name what they add. Toronto says on its website that it has added phosphate since 2014.

A chemical ledger

Part of my mandate is to have every ingredient cost in our water itemized in the City budget and be listed on one public page: what it is, why it is added, the dose, the yearly quantity, the yearly cost and its certification for drinking water use.

My first estimate of what each ingredient costs is under What every ingredient costs.

Fluoride

The City’s formal 2025 lab result for fluoride was 0.62 mg/L, and 204 point-of-entry samples ranged from 0.56 to 0.80 mg/L.

Fluoride is not added to make water microbially safe to drink. It is added to produce a dental effect. Residents cannot opt out of a municipal supply the way they can decline fluoridated toothpaste.

At 0.62 mg/L, two litres a day supplies 1.24 mg of fluoride before food, tea, toothpaste or mouthwash are counted. Exposure varies with how much water a person drinks, age, body weight and diet, while kidney function affects how much is cleared or retained.

Compliance with the legal limit measures the water, not the person drinking it.

What the research says now

Children’s IQ: a 2025 JAMA Pediatrics systematic review and meta-analysis by National Toxicology Program scientists found that, across 13 individual-level studies, every 1 mg/L increase in urinary fluoride was associated with a 1.63-point decrease in childhood IQ.
Cell energy: a cross-sectional study of 616 children found every 1 mg/L increase in water fluoride associated with a 0.10-unit reduction in relative mitochondrial DNA, and children with dental fluorosis averaged 15 percent lower levels than children without it. It shows an association, not proof of cause.
How it works: fluoride’s anticavity effect works mainly through contact with the tooth surface, which is why residents who want fluoride can get it directly from toothpaste.
The benefit has shrunk: the 2024 Cochrane review found that the benefit measured in recent studies is a fraction of what older studies showed, as the chart below sets out.
Europe: most European countries do not fluoridate drinking water; the practice remains concentrated in Ireland and parts of the United Kingdom and Spain.

In studies after 1975, fluoridation may mean 0.24 fewer decayed baby teeth per child and 3 percentage points more children with no decay. The review rates both estimates uncertain, with the possibility of no benefit at all, and its authors note that most fluoridation studies predate fluoride toothpaste.

Fluoride builds up in bone

The line is the average trend the researchers fitted across 24 people aged 16 to 79. Individual results varied widely, from 378 to 3,708 ppm, and the highest came from the oldest person.

About 99 percent of the fluoride the body retains is held in calcified tissues. The World Health Organization has described a slower skeletal clearance phase averaging about eight years, and the U.S. National Research Council has discussed an approximate 20-year whole-body half-life once fluoride is incorporated into bone.

Several major PFAS likewise have biological half-lives measured in years. Fluoride and PFAS can both create long-lived body burdens, through different mechanisms.

How it started

North Bay began fluoridating in the early 1960s. A local dentist told council in 2015 that he opened his practice in 1964, “shortly after the city started adding the chemical to the water supply.”

Ontario’s Fluoridation Act lets a council start fluoridation by by-law and stop it by by-law.

Parry Sound, in our own health unit district, used that power. Its council passed a by-law to remove fluoride in March 2016 and shut the system off on March 18, 2016, after consulting the province.

2015: council nearly ended it

Council came close to ending fluoridation in 2015 and stepped back after public health and local dentists objected. The research since then tells a different story.

My position

My policy judgment is that artificial fluoridation should be discontinued, based on cumulative exposure, long half-life and informed consent.

Standard carbon filters do not remove fluoride; reverse osmosis, distillation or specialized filtration do, which leaves the cost and upkeep with the households that do not want it. A safe modern water system does not require it.

If North Bay chooses reverse osmosis

What it removes. Health Canada’s corrosion guidance says membrane processes like reverse osmosis remove sodium, sulphate, chloride, calcium and bicarbonate, and “result in a corrosive finished water.” The World Health Organization describes desalinated water the same way: low in minerals, poorly buffered and aggressive toward cement and metal. So is any natural fluoride in the lake water.

What goes back in. Water treated this way has to be stabilized before it reaches the pipes.

Calcium and alkalinity: usually restored by adding lime or passing the water through limestone, to rebuild the buffering that protects pipes.
Magnesium: the World Health Organization says remineralizing with calcium and magnesium salts is the more desirable approach, since it also supplies nutrient minerals. It notes health benefits observed at magnesium levels of about 10 mg/L and above, while calling that link uncertain.
pH and corrosion control: caustic soda for pH, and a corrosion inhibitor if testing shows one is needed.

Corrosion control would have to be redesigned. Health Canada says treatment changes must be accompanied by close monitoring, and corrosion methods should be pilot tested before they are relied on. A reverse osmosis plant would force a new corrosion plan, so the City should find out now what Control Max is and how well it works.

Carbon or resin changes less. Granular activated carbon leaves the minerals in place. Ion exchange resin swaps ions, and Health Canada links shifts in the chloride and sulphate balance to lead release, so the water chemistry would still need checking. Either way, corrosion control belongs in the treatment design from the first drawing.

Getting the lead out

Lead pipes are still in the ground because no one was ever required to take them out. Canada’s plumbing code allowed lead service pipes until 1975. The local health unit says homes built before the 1960s could have a lead service pipe, and homes built before the mid-to-late 1980s can have lead solder.

Faucets add to it. Since the end of 2013, new faucets and fittings certified in Canada have been limited to 0.25 percent lead on the surfaces water touches. Before that, some products could contain up to 8 percent.

Who owns the pipe. The City owns the service pipe from the water main to the property line, and the homeowner owns the rest. Health Canada warns that replacing only the City’s half can release lead for two to three months, so both halves need to be done together. The Canadian Environmental Law Association found that most Ontario municipalities leave the owner’s side optional.

What Ontario requires. The province requires lead testing, and a corrosion control plan only when more than 10 percent of plumbing samples exceed the limit in two of the last three rounds. It has never required cities to remove lead pipes. Ontario still uses a limit of 10 micrograms per litre, though Health Canada lowered its guideline to 5 in 2019 and most provinces follow it.

A provincial presentation obtained by the Investigative Journalism Bureau states that “no level of lead exposure is considered safe.”

Where North Bay stands. In 2025, 1 of 88 household samples exceeded Ontario’s limit, while about 4 percent of plumbing samples failed across Ontario in 2024-25. Even so, at least one home in North Bay has tested over the limit every year since 2022, one of them at 29 micrograms per litre, nearly three times the limit. The City has never published how many lead service pipes remain, or how many homes test above Health Canada’s 5.

What other cities do.

Montreal publishes a map where anyone can look up an address and see lead, possible lead or no lead. Buildings put up before 1970 with eight or fewer units are marked possible lead until the city checks them.
Ottawa replaces the City’s half when it replaces a water main, offers homeowners a rebate and a loan for their half, and gives free certified filters to anyone whose tap tests at 5 or more.
Guelph gives grants of up to $2,000, about 80 percent of a typical private-side replacement.
Thunder Bay offers $1,000 grants to low-income homeowners and interest-free loans of up to $5,000. It estimates about 8,000 homes still have lead service connections, and in 2020 it estimated 1,000 of them had tap water over the provincial limit.

Schools, daycares and restaurants. Ontario law requires schools, private schools and child care centres to flush their plumbing and test for lead, and the results are posted on the province’s open data site. In 2024-25, 539 of 21,685 school and daycare samples across Ontario exceeded the standard. I found no rule requiring restaurants to test their taps.

The lead-out plan.

Publish a lead pipe map anyone can search by address, as Montreal does.
Replace both halves together during planned road and water main work. Sarnia’s consultants estimated about $4,000 to replace the City’s half of a lead line during planned capital work, against about $10,000 as a standalone repair.
Replace the full line free for any home that tests over the limit.
Offer rebates for faucets installed before 2014, and free certified filters for homes testing at 5 or more.
Publish every lead result, including how many are over Health Canada’s 5.

Why it pays off. Removing lead is how the City lowers corrosion control costs for good. Every lead pipe taken out is one less reason to dose an inhibitor, and once the lead is out and testing confirms pH alone protects the pipes, the City can stop buying Control Max.

The savings carry through to wastewater, because most of what goes into our tap water comes back through the sewers. North Bay’s wastewater plant adds ferric sulfate to strip phosphorus out before it discharges into Lake Nipissing, and Sarnia’s consultants listed extra chemical use at the wastewater plant as a cost of phosphate corrosion control. If Control Max is phosphate-based, dropping it means less phosphorus to remove and less ferric sulfate to buy.

The result is a leaner system from the tap to the lake: fewer chemicals bought for the water plant and, if Control Max is phosphate-based, less needed at the wastewater plant.

The pipes cost money up front, and the case rests on health first. The chemical savings come every year after.

Getting to minerals only

Health Canada calls raising pH one of the most effective ways to cut lead and copper, and links the lowest lead at the tap to a pH above 8. Its guidance puts the best range at pH 7.5 to 9.5, with alkalinity of 30 to 75 mg/L.

Other cities already control corrosion this way:

Ottawa raised its pH to 9.2 using sodium hydroxide and carbon dioxide.
Metro Vancouver raises pH and alkalinity using minerals. In 2021 it moved from pH 7.7 to a target of 8.3 to 8.5 and doubled alkalinity to about 20 mg/L.
Portland, Oregon, uses sodium carbonate and carbon dioxide, and reported lower lead levels after its 2022 change.

The City has not published the pH it targets now. The newest figure I found is from 2001, before the current plant, when treated water averaged 7.24.

What the minerals do. The protection comes from the pH and alkalinity. Health Canada says no published study shows calcium forming a protective film on lead, copper or iron pipes. Using calcium or magnesium compounds to reach the right pH adds minerals people need as a bonus.

Testing a change safely. The test runs at the plant while the city keeps drinking its normal water. Lead pipe taken from North Bay’s own system goes on racks with the plant’s treated water running through it around the clock. One set gets today’s treatment, another gets the new one, and staff measure how much lead comes off each for months.

Toronto did this before it began adding phosphate, building pipe loops at its R.C. Harris plant from lead service pipes dug out of its own system. It sent its corrosion control plan to the province in October 2010, the Ministry accepted it in April 2011, and full treatment began in December 2014.

After a switch, Health Canada says to test weekly where water leaves the plant and monthly in the system, including at home taps. That lasts at least 6 months after a pH and alkalinity change, and 18 months when an inhibitor is involved. Laval, Quebec, tried low doses of silicate in its own pipes in 1997 and dropped them after a camera inspection five months in showed no improvement.

Skipping the test is how cities get hurt. After Flint switched water sources in April 2014, it did not keep corrosion control in place, and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general found the delay prolonged residents’ exposure to lead.

Why now. The PFAS treatment will change North Bay’s water chemistry anyway, and the City’s contract with Jacobs runs to March 31, 2028. A corrosion study started now could finish in time to build the right corrosion control into the new plant, so the water changes once.

The order. Get the lead out first, using the plan above. Pilot raising pH with minerals alone while that work goes on. Drop Control Max once the pilot and home sampling show lead stays down.

What every ingredient costs

Part of my mandate is to break down the cost of every ingredient in North Bay’s drinking water: what it is, why it is added, how much goes in and what we pay for it each year. The City has not published these figures, so this section estimates what it can from public numbers.

What goes in now. The City’s 2025 water report lists four products:

Sodium hypochlorite, chlorine to disinfect. This one stays: Ontario requires a chlorine residual at all times throughout the pipes.
Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda to raise pH.
Hydrofluorosilicic acid, for fluoride.
Control Max, for corrosion control. It is the only product on the list that might contain phosphate.

What the City spends. The 2026 budget shows a single chemicals account for water and wastewater together, $859,179, with no breakdown by product.

Estimated savings without Control Max and fluoride.

Fluoride: about $50,000 a year, the figure council was given in 2015. No current figure is public.
Control Max: not published. In 2011 Toronto estimated its phosphate program would cost about $1.25 million a year to run. Toronto treats more than a billion litres a day and North Bay about 20 million, roughly 2 percent as much, so a similar program here would cost about $25,000 a year or less.
Together: roughly $75,000 a year, at those older prices.

What would offset it. Holding lead down without Control Max may take a higher pH, which means more pH chemical. Switching to a calcium or magnesium compound may also need new feed equipment. Neither cost is public.

What it saves downstream. If Control Max is phosphate-based, removing it also cuts the phosphorus the wastewater plant has to take out with ferric sulfate.

These estimates rest on old and outside figures. The real numbers are in the City’s purchasing records, and publishing them product by product is the first job of the chemical ledger.

Five wins for North Bay water

The treatment decision can deliver five improvements at once, and three of them do not have to wait for National Defence.

PFAS out of the tap. Target the lowest level reasonably achievable, as Health Canada recommends, with 30 ng/L as a ceiling. This needs the federally funded design and federal construction money.
Water that protects the pipes. Whatever technology is chosen, design stable, remineralized water in from the start, including calcium and, where it helps, magnesium. This is part of the treatment project.
A modern corrosion control plan. Map and replace lead pipes, both halves at once. Publish what Control Max is, how much is used and how well it is working, and start the corrosion study now, testing whether pH from minerals alone can protect the pipes.
An end to fluoridation. Council can discontinue it by by-law or put the question to voters.
A public chemical ledger. One page listing every ingredient in our water, its purpose, dose, quantity, cost and certification, starting with Control Max and fluoride.

People have waited long enough. We should be acting with more urgency, for the city and for the people who live in it.

If a sitting councillor calls this fear, I call it prudence. Every number here has a public source. They are listed below and posted on my website: https://www.nathaniellachance.com/water

Sources

North Bay’s water and plant