Lead in drinking water in Glebe schools

Schools in the Glebe and nearby neighbourhoods have been taking daily safety precautions after lead in their drinking water exceeded federal safety guidelines in dozens of tests between 2019 and 2023. 

A report by the Investigative Journalism Bureau at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto found that schools in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) had the highest fail rate of any school board in the province, finding excess lead in about a third of 5,300 tests.  

And it singled out First Avenue for special mention. Over four years, the school conducted 61 tests, and 80 per cent of them showed lead levels over Health Canada’s safety guideline of five parts per billion (ppb). While Ontario’s guideline is less stringent at 10 ppb, some tests at First Avenue were way over that too, one logging in at 1,730 ppb. 

The accompanying table shows the results for all neighbourhood schools. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) says there is no safe level of lead exposure and warns it can affect neurological development and produce lower intelligent quotients in kids and lead to heart disease and kidney problems in adults. 

“What we are really concerned about is the young children, under five years,” said Bjorn Larsen, a WHO economist and one of the authors of the IJB report. “These are the most vulnerable to lead.” 

But the OCDSB says the IJB numbers are misleading because they suggest widespread failures in water systems when it is often just a single faucet or fountain that had to be tested repeatedly. The board insists drinking water at all schools now meets Ontario safety standards. 

“Any water points which have been discovered through past test results to exceed provincial limits have since been fixed,” it said in a statement.  

While old lead pipes in aging schools are at the heart of the problem, the board says results were skewed when schools were closed or used less because of COVID-19. The water sat stagnant in pipes for months and was also affected by plumbing upgrades, including the installation of new water-bottle filling stations, during pandemic downtime. 

“The work on the plumbing disturbed sediment in the pipes which had built up over many years,” said Luka Luketic-Buyers, the local Ottawa Catholic School Board trustee. “We believe the sediment caused a number of these exceedances to occur. The exceedances dropped in 2022 and 2023 as schools were re-occupied and plumbing retrofits were completed.” 

Testing and remediation were stepped up in Ontario schools under 2017 amendments to the province’s Safe Drinking Water Act which was passed in 2002 after a judicial inquiry into contaminated water in Walkerton. 

Testing involves two steps. A first sample is taken from “standing water” which has sat in the pipes for at least six hours, usually overnight. Then water is run for five minutes to flush the system, and a second sample is taken half an hour later. If only the standing sample exceeds 10 ppb, a daily flushing regime is adopted. If both samples show too much lead, the water fixture (fountain or filling station) is taken out of service until it produces two clean tests. Faulty fixtures are replaced or repaired, sometimes with the addition of a lead filter or some new pipes. All water fixtures not designated for drinking are posted with “Hand Washing Only” signs. 

Because of past test results, First Avenue, Glashan, Glebe Collegiate and Mutchmor are all now flushing daily.  

While that might seem to some like a Band-Aid solution, the OCDSB says completely new plumbing in all its schools is just too big a job. “Total replacement within a building of all piping, fittings or fixtures that may contain lead would be prohibitively expensive and incredibly invasive,” it said. 

But Joel Harden, the NDP MPP for Ottawa Centre, says the provincial government should find more money for plumbing upgrades. 

“The government needs to be spending more on school infrastructure,” he said. “Let’s be clear, any amount of lead is bad. It’s just not safe.” 

Five years ago, when Health Canada lowered the maximum acceptable level to five ppb, seven provinces followed; Ontario, along with New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, has stuck with twice that level. The IJB reports says that cuts the number of failed tests, “giving Ontarians a false sense of security.” 

Still, the OCDSB says while it is only required to comply with Ontario regulations, it is working toward the more stringent federal rules. 

“We are committed to ensuring the safety and quality of our water,” said local trustee Nili Kaplan-Myrth. “We have been actively replacing fixtures to reduce lead levels below five ppb at all our water consumption stations.” 

 

Glebe School  No. of tests  No. of failed tests (exceeding the federal guideline of 5 ppb)  % failed tests  Highest lead level recorded (ppb) 
         
Corpus Christi  64  24  37.5%   
2019/20  14  1  7.14%  8 
2020/21  36  23  63.89%  187 
2021/22  2  0  0%   
2022/23  12  0  0%  5 
         
First Avenue  61  49  80.33%   
2019/20  2  2  100%  1730 
2020/21  43  36  83.72%  64.3 
2021/22  14  11  78.57%  53 
2022/23  2  0  0%   
         
Glashan  43  28  65.12%   
2019/20  2  0  0%  30.8 
2020/21  5  4  80%  39.6 
2021/22  32  22  68.75%  2280 
2022/23  4  2  50%  13 
         
Glebe Coop Nursery School   

4 

 

0 

 

0% 

 
2019/20  2  0  0%  .05 
2020/21  0  0  0%   
2021/22  0  0  0%   
2022/23  2  0  0%  .18 
         
Glebe Collegiate  123  46  37.4%   
2019/20  52  25  48.08%  589 
2020/21  14  6  42.86%  217 
2021/22  31  7  22.58%  63 
2022/23  26  8  30.77%  19 
         
Immaculata  126  48  38.1%   
2019/20  22  17  77.27%  1850 
2020/21  20  14  70%  1390 
2021/22  22  16  72.73%  24 
2022/23  62  1  1.61%  1 
         
Mutchmor  24  7  29.17%   
2019/20  2  1  50%  14.4 
2020/21  12  4  33.33%  868 
2021/22  6  1  16.67%  9.36 
2022/23  4  1  25%  9 
         

 

Comments by Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, school trustee for Zone 9 of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) 

 

“In accordance with expanded testing requirements in The Safe Drinking Water Act, 2002 and OReg 243/07 2017 amendments, all designated drinking locations in OCDSB secondary schools were completed in 2020. 

The 2019-20 elevated levels posted were from the initial tests in order to meet the 2017 amendments, which was a common occurrence at many sites. We are now required to check one random fixture annually and react accordingly based on the results. Based on those results, there is a flushing program that occurs (if required). This could be daily, weekly etc., and is performed by the lead custodian (or replacement) based on the school specific water flushing program.  

OCDSB Facilities Lead has clarified that the numbers in the report reflect the initial test results prior to the implementation of the remedial work and flushing program. 

As a district, we are committed to ensuring the safety and quality of our water. We have been actively replacing fixtures to reduce lead levels to below 5 ppm at all water consumption locations. 

The FAQ document on our website provides information regarding the actions OCDSB has been taking to address the issue. https://www.ocdsb.ca/news/lead_testing_program_faq.” 

 

Comments by Luka Luketic-Buyers, school trustee for Zone 9 of the Ottawa Catholic School Board (OCSB) 

 

“School boards in Ontario are mandated by Ontario Regulation 243/07 under the Safe Drinking Water Act 2002. The regulation has required boards to test all fixtures used for drinking or food preparation annually since its implementation in 2007. The OCSB has always been compliant with the regulation, all testing information from the previous 2 years is on site at each school and is public information.  

In the event of a lead exceedance with any fixture, it is immediately rendered inoperable. The OCSB reports the results to Ottawa Public Health, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Education. A drinking water advisory is put in place by Ottawa Public Health for the fixture. Steps are then taken by the board to rectify the exceedance. In some cases, lead filters are installed, fixtures may have to be replaced and in rare instances reverse osmosis is used to remove lead from the water. Re-sampling of fixtures is required as these steps are implemented, sometimes the first attempt to rectify the problem is not successful resulting in multiple exceedances from a single fixture. Once a fixture has passed re-sampling, Ottawa Public Health provides the board with a letter rescinding the drinking water advisory, only then is the fixture returned to operation.  

When using the Ontario regulation of 10 ppb, the exceedances at Corpus Christi total 18 out of 64 samples, [or 28 per cent], and Immaculata total 17 out of 126 samples, [or 13.5 per cent.] 

There were an unusually high number of exceedances in our schools in 2021 as reflected in the data. There were two reasons: one, the schools were vacant, water was stagnant in the pipes for weeks or months in some instances. (Two,) Our board also used some of the CVRIS funding to install a large number of water bottle filling stations in 2021. The work on the plumbing disturbed sediment in the pipes which had built up over many years, we believe the sediment caused a number of these exceedances to occur. The exceedances dropped in 2022 and 2023 as the schools were re-occupied and the plumbing retrofits were completed.” 

 

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