Niagara schools meet safe drinking water standards: boards
The water came from an old tap located in a maintenance closet somewhere in the basement of Ridley College’s campus in St. Catharines, said headmaster Ed Kidd.
It was also never used as a source of drinking water.
But when the private school’s faculty learned water taken from the tap contained 147 ppb (parts per billion) of lead, Kidd said, it was immediately decommissioned.
It was one of several water quality tests conducted at the school that exceeded new federal standards for lead content in drinking water of no more than 5 ppb.
But those new standards, revised by Health Canada in March, have yet to be adopted by the provincial government, which continues to limit lead levels in drinking water to 10 ppb.
Kidd said any test results above that 10 ppb level are immediately addressed.
A national news story published Tuesday identified Ridley College as having one of the highest number of exceedances among private schools.
Kidd called the article “really distressing,” describing it as “like changing the rules of the game, suddenly halfway through the game.”
“Where it stands right now, we fully comply with the standards that are set forth by the
Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health in terms of their legislation and the work of the Safe Drinking Water Act,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, the most recent data from the current test results shows the school has “zero exceedances in any drinking water fixture on campus.”
Despite the province’s adherence to the 10 ppm threshold, the World Health Organization warns there is no safe level of lead contamination in drinking water.
Kidd said he has heard from only a few concerned parents.
“Obviously, as a parent you’re concerned and you want more information,” he said.
The school sent an e-mail to the parents of its of 900 students, assuring them it is fully compliant with the province’s Safe Drinking Water Act, and conducts annual testing as required by Public Health (Niagara Region) and the Ministry of the Environment.
Although some of the buildings on the campus are more than a century old, Kidd said most of the exceedances have occurred in newer facilities. Water quality test results have shown levels above 5 ppb in schools run by the region’s two largest school bodies, District School Board of Niagara and Niagara Catholic District School Board.
DSBN chief communications officer Kim Yielding, however, said results of water tests conducted in the past “don’t reflect the quality of our schools today because of the proactive things we’ve been doing to make sure our water is safe for students.”
For instance, she said, old infrastructure has been replaced, and most schools have filtered water bottle filling stations.
“We’re very happy with water quality of our schools today,” she said.
Yielding provided recent test results for several DSBN schools that show nearly all fell below even the new federal 5 ppm threshold. “Every one of our schools has the most recent water quality test results for anyone to review,” she said. “They can have a look and see that we are below the 5 micrograms per litre.”
Catholic board education director John Crocco said while it’s a challenge to ensure every tap in every school meets standards, “we have a rigourous program through our facilities services department to ensure that we remain in compliance with the province’s mandatory requirements.”
Crocco said water systems are flushed on a daily or weekly basis at facilities where it’s needed, while drinking water sources that are not compliant are immediately taken out of service.