Tests reveal unsafe lead levels in drinking water Highest concentration in Daniel McIntyre ward; city recommends flushing pipes By: Aldo Santin and Maggie Macintosh Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019 Last Modified: 6:40 PM CST Friday, Dec. 20, 2019 Updates

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This article was published 16/12/2019 (1792 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A random sample of tap water taken from homes across the city during the summer found that residents in seven wards had to leave their faucets running for a minimum of two minutes to ensure lead levels fell below national guidelines for safe drinking water.

City hall conducted its water testing in August after Ottawa released new guidelines in the spring for lead levels in drinking water, slashing the standard in half to “maximum acceptable concentrations” of 0.005 milligrams per litre.

The greatest concentration of lead in tap water was found in Daniel McIntyre, where levels reached 0.10822 mg/L — 22 times the maximum allowable amount – for 17 per cent of the homes in the ward with lead pipes.

The city says almost one-quarter (23.77 per cent) of all Winnipeg homes with lead pipes are located in the Daniel McIntyre ward, where there are 5,496 homes. 

“Absolutely, it does concern me. Anytime you have an exceedance of the guideline level, that is something that needs to be rectified,” said Eva Pip, a retired University of Winnipeg biology professor and local toxicologist whose research focuses on water quality.

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Lead is a neurotoxin that can affect the nervous system if inhaled or ingested. Exposure to high levels can cause kidney and brain damage; it is especially of concern to children’s health because their brains are developing.

A close examination of the testing results found that lead was present in eight city wards, and in seven of them — St. Vital, Elmwood-East Kildonan, Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry, Point Douglas, Mynarski, River Heights-Fort Garry and Daniel McIntyre — the taps had to be flushed a minimum of two minutes in some homes to record levels below the federal guideline.

St. James was the only area where the sample homes — eight — tested below the guideline after one minute.

In a release Tuesday morning, the city said that despite the findings from the sampling, “Winnipeg’s drinking water is safe.”

The city says there is no detectable lead in Shoal Lake, the source of piped water for all of Winnipeg, and a food-grade phosphoric acid is added to the water in the treatment process to prevent lead from entering the water through pipe corrosion.

“It’s not the water that’s going into the pipe that’s unsafe. It’s the water that’s in your home, that’s sitting in the pipes — I wouldn’t say it’s unsafe, it’s just recommended not to drink it,” Renee Grosselle, the city’s manager of environmental standards, told reporters during an afternoon news conference at the water and waste department offices.

“Overall, the results are as expected. Samples that were taken in… homes with lead pipes, there were a few that had some results over the guideline. However, on average, for the city, the results were below the guideline. They were about an average of 0.003, 0.004 (mg/L)."

Grosselle reiterated that as evidenced by the results, flushing is one of the best ways to reduce lead in drinking water. “You can take a shower before you drink out of the tap, you can do a load of laundry," she said.

She added that despite some results of lead levels surpassing the national guideline, Winnipeg is "ahead of the curve" compared to other municipalities because of its treatment program, which has been used since 2000.

The city says about 13 per cent of Winnipeg’s total housing stock has lead pipes but Pip said the number is likely much higher since the city doesn’t have reliable historical records. She said there’s a need to conduct more testing to find out how widespread the problem actually is.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency requires water utilities to take corrective action if lead levels exceed safe guidelines in 10 per cent of samples or more.

Winnipeg said its August testing found 54 homes (20 per cent of those sampled) had lead levels above the national guideline before flushing the taps.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

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