Drinking water safe in 18 MUN buildings, Aquarena

Memorial University says tap water has been ruled safe to drink in 18 of its campus buildings in St. John's, as well as in the Aquarena facility.

This announcement comes after the university closed its doors last week when unacceptably high levels of lead were found in the engineering and music buildings' water.

Paula Dyke, acting Director of Public Affairs at MUN, said more than 500 samples have been sent to a lab in Nova Soctia for analysis. Multiple samples were collected from all 50 buildings across campus.

Dyke said the university hasn't yet identified how lead is getting into the water supply.

Results are still filtering in from the lab, said Dyke, so the university is unable to comment on the results — or the cause of the high lead levels.

"As they're finishing their analysis on any particular group of samples, they're sending that back to us," Dyke said. "So we're not necessarily getting them [back] as a full set of samples per building."

In the meantime, bottled drinking water and lead-filtered fountains have been provided for people working in the remaining buildings.