St. Catharines tested more than 100 homes for water lead levels last year

Over past decade only two per cent of results exceeded safe limits

The City of St. Catharines has performed nearly 1,500 water tests to check for lead in residential taps in the past decade, with less than two per cent exceeding provincial limits.

While some Ontario municipalities do not check water in private residences, St. Catharines continues to offer a community-wide lead testing program for free to any residents concerned about their water.

“We want people to be confident in our water generally, so obviously that’s one reason we do these samples, well over almost 1,500 samples, and it’s almost always fine,” said Mark Green, the city’s manager of environmental services.

“If it’s not, those people can at least know and take steps to protect themselves.”

The city’s watermains are lead-free, but residences in older neighbourhoods may have private service lines running into their homes from the watermains that are made of lead. Green said when water flows through a lead pipe, a small amount of lead can leach into the drinking water.

Lead services were used until about 1955, and any homes built after that will not have a lead water service.

Homes built prior to that time may or may not have a lead water service, as pipes were also made with copper or other materials.

A recent investigation into lead in drinking water by 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, including the Toronto Star, found only one in five municipalities have reported any water testing results over the past two years and most municipalities in Ontario do not offer free testing.

"The Tainted Water" series has been in all three daily Niagara newspapers, including the St. Catharines Standard.

“Generally, we have really safe, clean water,” Green said.

“We have a number of requirements we have to meet under the safe drinking water act and we’re in full compliance with that. Residents can certainly be confident their water is safe.”

He said of the 1,497 water tests conducted at homes in the past 10 years, 24 exceeded the Ontario drinking water standard of 10 parts per billion.

New federal regulations are five parts per billion, but the city doesn’t yet have a breakdown of the numbers for that standard.

In 2018, the city conducted 109 tests and found one home that exceeded Ontario standards.

Tests are typically done at the kitchen tap. The water is flushed for five

minutes, then sits for 30 minutes. Samples are taken to a third-party accredited lab that does the testing.

Results are available to the residents and property owner.

Green said replacement of lead pipes is the best option, but it’s up to the owner. It can typically cost $3,000 to $4,000 to hire a company to replace the lead service lines, depending on the size of property.

There is no mandatory action a property owner must take if they discover they have lead, and Green said there’s no downside to finding out. They can take steps such as flushing the water, or using a filter if they don’t want to replace the pipes.

While service lines run across the private property, a small portion is on the city’s road allowance. Since the 1980s, any lead the city comes across as part of a watermain reconstruction project is automatically replaced on the city portion.

The city also automatically replaces lead pipes on the road allowance if a homeowner is replacing a private service line. St. Catharines replaced 44 metres of lead pipe in 2018.