The investigation’s analysis compared lead levels across Canada with those in Flint, Michigan, during the city’s 2015 tainted water scandal. The causes of lead in drinking water vary with the supply source, water chemistry and infrastructure. Flint’s crisis sprang from a decision to draw water from a more corrosive water source into an old and deteriorating lead pipe infrastructure. The result was a perfect public health storm. Headlines around the world highlighted not just lead contaminated drinking water but the death of 12 people from a Legionnaire’s outbreak as bacteria spread through the water system. Canadian cities have many reasons underlying their lead problems. Highly corrosive water, thousands of kilometers of aging lead pipes buried underground and dated, sometimes inadequate, testing methods are evident in some of the worst lead hot spots across the country. Canadian water officials reject any comparisons to Flint. But lead levels flowing from taps are comparable across jurisdictions, according to three leading experts who reviewed the investigation’s analysis. And Canadian lead levels in some cities are conspicuously similar to Flint.“We have Flints right across Canada because of the absence of regulation to push the numbers down,” says Michèle Prévost, a Quebec engineering professor and international expert in lead levels in drinking water. “I do understand the water producers to be timid with this to be compared with a terrible situation with bad water treatment, bad distribution. But the fact of the matter is, we’re talking about similar lead levels.”Prince Rupert, B.C.In this British Columbia coastal town testing conducted by the investigation found an average lead result of 14.1 parts per billion (ppb) in water tested after a six-hour resting period in houses without lead service lines. In Flint, 2015 data using a similar testing method averaged 10.5 ppb in homes with a mix ...
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