More than 2,400 Ontario schools and daycares exceeded the current federal guideline for lead in drinking water in the past two years, a Toronto Star/Ryerson School of Journalism investigation has found.The startling figure marks a 275-per-cent jump from two years ago due to more frequent testing and a tougher federal lead limit that reveal a dramatically larger problem than previously known.Across the province, 9 per cent of all lead tests in schools and daycares exceeded the national lead guideline of 5 parts per billion (ppb) during the 2016/17 and 2017/18 school years, according to the Star’s analysis of provincial test result data. In all, 29 per cent of schools and daycares had at least one exceedance. Some were dramatic. Twenty three schools and daycares across Ontario reported samples higher than 1,000 ppb — a level experts say can immediately impact blood lead levels in a child and risk harm to cognitive development.The data are available on a provincial website but a lack of warnings to students, parents and teachers has kept the problem hidden. “As a student, I think I should be told,” says 19-year-old Sarah Rana, who graduated last year from White Oaks Secondary School, an Oakville high school with about 1,900 students in two buildings dating back to the 1960s.Lead fixtures, including taps and water fountains, were historically used in school plumbing and many remain in place today as the main culprits of elevated lead levels in drinking water.With lead exceedances dating back to 2016, White Oaks’ south campus showed 22 water samples over 5 ppb last year. On the school’s north campus, there were another 26 with one sample that tested as high as 140 ppb — 28 times the federal guideline.“I’m shocked,” said Rana. “I don’t even know what to think about that...How is this going to affect me in the long term?”In March, Health Canada cut the federal lead guideline in half — t ...
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