by Alissa Guissine Canadian citizens of B.C. and Nova Scotia where beginning to worry after 120 Journalists across Canada conducted tests and discovered dangerous amounts of lead in 11 cities across Canada. Although not affecting Toronto to such a serious extent, citizens of the GTA and old Toronto were starting to send in requests for lead testing kits and pipe replacements.
According to researchers from Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism one-third of water tested exceeded Canada’s national safety guidelines of 5 parts per billion and 18 percent exceeded America’s limit of 15 ppb. (ppb is a system used to measure the concentration of a contaminant in a solvent.) The prime suspects of lead are aging infrastructure and plumbing, specifically in homes built before the mid-1950s. Most older homes’ pipes were made with lead and were sealed with lead solder instead of rubber gaskets. The problems are not the large city water mains but the smaller pipes leading to resident’s homes. Corrosive rainwater draws lead from aging pipes, thus contaminating the flowing water. Lead exposure can cause kidney and stomach damage to adults as well as raised blood pressure. Behavioral issues and learning disabilities like loss of IQ are the main effects of lead on children. Dr. Richard Stanwick, chief medical health officer with Island Health said the Capital Regional District (CRD) of B.C. has been focusing on resolving the issue and discussing how best to focus resources. A report went out on November 20th which was the first step of testing the whole system. Based on the report the sources of lead were thought to be associated with fire-suppression hook-ups and within municipal systems. Although a grave issue the cities stated that: “It would take decades to replace all the hundreds of thousands of pipes and it would be difficult to co-ordinate replacements because private property owners would have to pay.” Though challenging and costly the cities will replace or line the pipes as soon as needed. If your home was built before the mid-1950s you could get a free lead testing kit from Toronto’s municipal government. The province of Quebec said it would pay for all daycares in the province to test tap water for lead. These are the first steps to having clean water sources for citizens across Canada.
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