Thread:SpicyJusticeLass/@comment-108.49.222.105-20180601183202/@comment-37542619-20191117014833

'''LEAD has recently been discovered to be in Canada’s Water Supply in extreme amounts. You might know of the toxicity of lead from the Flint Water Crisis, which was an extreme emergency in Flint Michigan. Now, from many studies on Canada’s water, it has found that it is laced with lead, especially in schools and daycares. The cause of this is from Lead Piping, pipes made from Lead. Up until 2014, “Lead-Free” pipes weren’t really lead-free and had up to 8% lead. With studies done since 2014, 33% of water samples exceeded the national guideline of “safe” levels of lead, which is 5 PPB. Results from samples taken in cities such as Montreal, Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Rupert, showed lead levels which were similar, or even further, than American cities who had made international news from their lead problems. Often, Toronto’s lead levels were some of the highest in Canada, as half of the tests were surpassing the provincial lead guideline in 2008. Toronto started to add a non-toxic substance called orthophosphate to the water in 2014 to control corrosion. Even though the Federal Gov. sets national lead level guidelines, it has often let the provinces set and enforce their own drinking water standards. Due to this, cities do lead tests in varying ways. One popular method is heavily scrutinized for failing to give good, real-time results. Only one province, Ontario, has a rule that forces municipalities to treat water. Municipal workers in Quebec have usually flushed pipes for five minutes before collecting a sample, which is a method criticized as negligent because it under-represents lead levels. The Quebec Gov. has announced changes to that policy after seeing data reported on Oct. 16, showing that many households in close to 100 cities across Quebec were exposed to dangerous levels of lead from their taps. High lead levels were recorded in Saskatchewan and Alberta where there is no required public reporting of lead test results. 30% of Edmonton lead tests show exceedings of the National lead guideline including a result of 428 PPB in 2017, which is 86 times the federal limit. And in Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon, homes fed by lead lines averaged about 22 ppb between 2013 and 2018, four times the National Limit. The Albertan government introduced a new rule in September that makes it so water utility companies must report their test results to the Provincial government, something they were not required to do before. Health Canada and the WHO both agree there is no safe amount of lead. Today, drinking water and food are the leading cause of lead contamination for Canadians. Lead pipes were prohibited from use in new construction in 1975 when the National Building Code was made. Yet, lead in water is a persistent public health crisis in Canada. Some Edmontonians have even been drinking water with lead PPB counts as high as 120 times the federal health limit! Since 2014, 30 percent of those Edmonton lead tests exceeded the federal limit when using testing procedures correctly designed to measure exposure. Marc Edwards, a water treatment expert from Virginia Tech University, said that “The triple-digit lead levels found in some Edmonton homes could elevate a child’s blood lead level.” “I think this decision to not be forthcoming about the higher lead in water levels that were actually measured is counterproductive because that could be you, that could be your house, that could be your child drinking that water,” he said. From this, we can see that lead is quite the issue.'''