Council votes to fast track replacement of lead water lines by 2025

City council has unanimously approved the acceleration of Regina’s Lead Service Connection Replacement Program, making a commitment to complete all replacements by 2025.

“We want to make sure that we get this done as quickly as possible,” said Mayor Michael Fougere after a special city council meeting that was called for Tuesday afternoon.

The push comes after an investigative news report released last month showed tap water samples from some Regina, Saskatoon, and Moose Jaw homes were among the highest measured levels of lead-tainted water in Canada.

Regina’s water, which is sourced from the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant, is safe and 95 per cent of the city’s water service connections are lead free, but the remaining five per cent are made of lead and at the current pace of replacement will take more than 20 years to complete.

“We know where the city connections are. We’re not sure on the private owners side because we don’t keep those records,” said Fougere, who brought forward the motion.

Council also approved expanding the program to include replacement of the homeowner’s side of the connection and the creation of a support program that would see the city paying part or all of the costs of replacement up front so residents could repay over time.

Fougere argued that the replacement of lead service lines on the private side should be mandatory.

The free lead water filter program, which currently provides free filters for up to one year, will also be expanded to provide filters for as long as it takes for a replacement of the line to be completed.

The motion also directs the city to add orthophosphate to the water supply to mitigate lead content in water and enhance communication with homeowners about lead connections and their potential impacts.

Regina originally had approximately 7,000 lead service lines on the public side of residential property lines, but has reduced that number to 3,600 over the years through replacements.

Currently, if homeowners have lead service lines on the private side of their property and want those replaced, it’s their responsibility and at their cost.

In contrast, Saskatoon replaces between 300 and 400 lead service lines every year and mandates homeowners replace the private side at the same time, but with financial aid from the city. It has just over 2,800 public lead service lines left to replace and is poised to do so by 2026, but does not offer a free filter program.

In response to the investigation, which was done by a consortium of universities and media companies including the Leader-post and the Saskatoon Starphoenix, the province said they would not be providing any additional help to municipalities to tackle the problem.

“We’d like to have them help us, but if they’re saying no, we’re going to proceed in any case,” said Fougere.