Investigative journalists and university students fanned out across Canada to test the amount of lead in drinking water. Even experts were surprised that 33% of the samples exceeded federal guidelines.
In this July 21, 2019 photo, Florabela Cunha fills a glass of water from her kitchen faucet in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. In previous summers she used to make iced tea for her family using water from her tap, but has since stopped citing concerns about the water quality. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast have been unwittingly exposed to levels of lead in their drinking water.
In a country that touts its clean, natural turquoise lakes, sparkling springs and rushing rivers, there are no national mandates to test drinking water for lead. And even if agencies do take a sample, residents are rarely informed of contamination. Sarah Rana, 18, was one of tens of thousands of students who weren’t alerted when her brick high school in Oakville, a town on the shores of Lake Ontario, found lead levels above national guidelines in dozens of water samples, the highest at 140 ppb. She found out on her own, looking at reports posted online.
The town of Prince Rupert, where whales, grizzly bears and bald eagles are common sights, is among more than a dozen communities along Canada’s wild west coast where residents — many Indigenous — are living in homes with aging pipes, drinking corrosive rainwater that is likely to draw lead. But their province of British Columbia doesn’t require municipalities to test tap water for lead.
“Because there is no federal oversight, everybody does what they want,” said engineering professor Michèle Prévost, who quit working on a government study of school drinking water in frustration over the lack of lead testing. “Most provinces ignore this very serious problem.” In the U.S., however, even public water quality reports weren’t enough to prevent the Flint, Michigan, drinking water crisis, brought on by a 2014 decision to temporarily pull water from a river as a cost saver while installing new pipelines. Some doctors raised concerns in Flint after noticing elevated lead levels in children’s blood tests.
“This is a significant health concern, people should be warned,” said Edwards. “Something should be done.” Studies have documented over years that even low levels of lead exposure can affect a child’s IQ and their ability to pay attention. Children who are younger than 7 and pregnant women are most at risk from lead exposure, which can damage brains and kidneys.
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