Flint water crisis: a lesson for Canadian homeowners

The crisis in Flint, Mich., where high levels of lead in the drinking water has triggered a health emergency, is highlighting the prevalence of lead service pipes in thousands of homes across North America.

More than 60,000 households in major cities across Canada still have lead service lines connecting the home to the municipal water supply, according to water toxicity experts, who conducted studies for a report supported by the Canadian Water Network. And the lead concern is why couples like Mike Kennedy and his wife, who were expecting, to take action.

Across the border, residents in Flint started to complain about yellowish-orange and brown-coloured tap water, which appeared after the city switched its water source from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in April 2014. It was meant to be a cost-cutting measure.

“There is no safe exposure to lead,” Bu Lam told Yahoo Canada News. Lam, who holds a PhD in environmental chemistry from the University of Toronto, manages municipal programs at the Canadian Water Network. “Ideally there should be no exposure.”

Researchers conducted studies in Flint last September showing the water pipes had lead levels 10 times higher than previously measured. The Flint Hurley Medical Center did its own study testing the lead levels of 2,000 children under the age of five and discovered the percentage of children with elevated blood lead levels had almost doubled compared to a previous testing period.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder acknowledged it as a health crisis last October and the water source was switched back to Detroit but serious damage had been done.

Extended lead exposure is linked to health problems around the cardiovascular and nervous systems, neurological development, functioning of kidneys and reproductive organs. It can be especially harmful for pregnant women, young children and old people.

If you are concerned in general about water emergencies in Canada — not just about lead pipes and corrosion — the private site watertoday.ca keeps track of boil-water orders across the country.

Water regulations are a provincial matter and it is the responsibility of municipalities to adhere to those rules. The Canadian government does, however, have jurisdiction over water treatment on reserves and the new government has promised infrastructure funding to improve those facilities.

‘Didn’t want to be poisoning our baby’

Kennedy and Tracey Stott knew the risks around lead service pipes and that’s why the Toronto couple took out the pipe connected to their east-end home.

“We moved in five years ago and my wife was pregnant,” Kennedy tells Yahoo Canada News. “Our house is about 100 years old. We knew the city would test water samples for free so we got it done.”

Kennedy, who is an engineering technician, says trace amounts of lead were found and that was enough for him and his wife to do the replacement.

“We didn’t want to be poisoning our baby,” he said. “The city had a program where they replaced the public pipe and we paid for the part going to our house. It was less than $1,500.”

Your house probably has lead service pipes if it was built before 1950, Lam says. However, he adds that lead was used to solder water pipes right until 1990.

The scientist says there is no reason to be alarmed.

“Canada, in a relative sense, does a good job minimizing exposure to lead,” noted Lam. “Municipalities here are constantly checking the water quality and the condition of the pipes.”

To that end, many utilities will try to lessen the corrosion by adding phosphate (which doesn’t affect human health) or playing with the pH/acidity level of the water to slow the corrosion down.

As Lam points out, that’s where Flint officials got it dangerously wrong.

“When they switched water sources, they didn’t test it for its quality, which caused a lot of corrosion in the pipes.”

It’s estimated it could take a year for Flint’s pipes to stabilize so the corrosion will be back to levels prior to the switch.

Problems with partial replacement

Some forward-thinking municipalities in Canada (including Halifax and London, Ont.,) have programs to help homeowners replace their lead service pipes.

Costs can range from city to city. The cities of Ottawa and Toronto have put out some estimates. In Ottawa the full cost from water main to water meter ranges from $6,000 to $10,000 with the property owner footing $2,000 to $5,000 of the total bill.

Toronto just estimates the homeowner’s cost to between $2,000 to $3,000. Unfortunately, the City of Toronto recently killed a program that would have loaned poorer residents the money to cover their portion of full replacement.

Municipalities can only replace the pipes that are on city property, which they often do when they are updating their systems. They aren’t allowed to replace pipes on private property.

But this can cause more problems. A Canadian study discovered that partial replacement can exacerbate the amount of lead entering the system. The 2015 report, sponsored by the Canadian Water Network and lead by the NSERC Industrial Chair in Drinking Water Michèle Prévost, uncovered startling evidence when only the city part of a lead pipe is replaced.

“We went out into the field last year and went to houses with partial lead pipe replacement, which had never been done before,” research associate Elise Deshommes told Yahoo Canada News. Deshommes was part of the team led by Prévost.

“We found the [new copper] connections were attacking the lead and increasing the amount of lead in the water,” Deshommes said. “It is better to remove all of it.”

Deshommes says total removal everywhere would be great but she also says that replacing even one community’s lead pipes completely could take up to 20 years depending on the number of houses affected.

‘What kind of pipes do I have?’

Lam agrees. He says it’s about minimizing risk because it would be hard to replace all the lead service pipes in Canada quickly.

“The Flint situation has at least galvanized people to think, ‘What kind of pipes do I have?’” Lam says.

Besides more stringent water quality regulations, the report by Prévost makes several recommendations, to make it easier for homeowners to get the job done:

• replacement of the property owner’s lead pipes through partial, total or direct funding;

• deferred reimbursement through taxation;

• extending homeowner’s access to the utility’s contractor;

• registration of lead service pipes on property records.

In the meantime, concerned homeowners can clean the aerators in their faucets or use a water filter or buy bottled water for the pregnant women or toddlers in the household. Also, only use cold water for drinking.

Kennedy says he’s glad he and his wife decided to have the lead service pipe removed. His son Owen is now four years old and “100 per cent healthy, as far as we can tell.”

“The replacement only took about four hours,” he recalls. “It means we are closer to drinking safer water. I’d say to any homeowner it’s worth checking and replacing.”