HALIFAX—Nearly a third of tap water tests conducted by Halifax Water since 2012 have exceeded the national guideline for lead content, a national investigation has discovered.

That level of exceedance of the 5 parts per billion federal guideline is among the highest discovered in a national review of lead test data as part of a year-long investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, including the Star Halifax and the Institute for Investigative Journalism based at Concordia University.

The reasons behind the numbers point to a patchwork of testing methods across Canada that can hide the serious health risks of lead and leave decisions about testing methods up to local agencies and governments in ways that can radically skew the results. While the federal government has issued a lead limit guideline, it does not impose legal requirements on jurisdictions to test.

Unlike many cities, Halifax collects water samples from the tap after a six-hour period of “standing” during which the water in a home has not been disturbed — a method that experts say most accurately captures lead levels, often producing results with higher levels of lead.

In much of the rest of Canada, water samples are gathered after “flushing” the pipes for several minutes, which reduces potential lead residue sitting in the plumbing.

“We knew it was the right thing to test standing water,” said Reid Campbell, director of water services for the city. “To us, there’s nothing to hide.”

Testing standing water is designed to mirror how we consume from the tap. We get up in the morning, turn on the tap after the water has been standing in the pipes for eight hours and drink it.

And during the day when we go to work, water sits in pipes for eight hours before we return home and consume it or cook with it.

Lead particles collect in standing water over time and can be released when the tap is next turned on, causing an initial spike.

Test results in Halifax show a dramatic difference between standing and flushed samples.

From 2012 to 2018, almost 3,000 lead tests were conducted in houses across the city — four one-litre samples taken one after the other followed by a “flushed” sample after the tap has been running for several minutes.

Those results show a repeated pattern of high exceedances of the national guideline of 5 parts per billion, ranging from 26 per cent from the first litre to more than 40 per cent in the third and fourth litres. Flushed samples show a steep decline, with an exceedance rate of less than 10 per cent.

Last year, for example, results show 20 per cent of tests drawn in the first litre — 31 out of 152 — exceeded the national guideline. That exceedance rate rose to 33 per cent on the second litre, 42 per cent on the third litre, back down to 37 per cent on the fourth litre followed by 2 per cent on the flushed litre.

Conducting standing tests is a logistical challenge. Water agencies like Halifax Water need willing homeowners and renters to agree to not use their water overnight or during the day until a sample is collected. About half of Halifax Water’s testing pool of about 150 homes, which includes many owned by staff, have lead service lines. So high levels of exceedances aren’t a surprise, said Campbell.

“We want people to be aware of lead,” he said.

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Halifax has an estimated 2,500 publicly owned lead service lines bringing water from watermains. On the private side of the property line, there are another 10,000 lead service connections that carry water into homes, all within the peninsula and urban Dartmouth. Cities have no authority to remove pipes on private property. That is the responsibility of homeowners. And it can be expensive, ranging from $2,000 to $8,000.

“If you have a lead service line in Halifax, you need to deal with it,” Campbell said. “We think we’re being as progressive as anyone in Canada to deal with it. But homeowners have to be involved.”

The city offers a rebate program covering 25 per cent of the cost up to $2,500, and a financing program that allows homeowners to pay down the costs through their water bills.

But uptake has been slow. Campbell said Halifax Water hopes for about 300 private-side replacements a year, but there were only 76 in 2017 (18 after the rebate program started) and 105 in 2018.

Kim Stewart, a real estate agent, recently removed the lead pipes in a home she purchased near the Macdonald Bridge in Dartmouth this summer.

After booking a contractor, a package appeared on the doorstep. Halifax Water sent her a carafe with extra filters and a small testing device.

Stewart started drinking filtered water but was still using the unfiltered water for cooking. But boiling lead-contaminated water, including for cooking, causes lead to become more concentrated and therefore more dangerous, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control.

“I feel like this has been a really good learning experience for me because I didn’t realize that Halifax Water was so proactive. I didn’t know this existed. In fact, I had no idea I should be drinking filtered water,” Stewart said.

Cameron Haley, project manager at Sackville Trenching, one of Halifax Water’s three preferred contractors, says his company replaces about 40 lead service lines annually. There’s been an uptick in the work over the past few years.

Haley said the big barrier to replacement is knowledge, not cost.

“It’s not that expensive of an endeavour if you look at the grand scheme of things,” he said. “It’s a day’s work.”

Halifax had been removing lead on the public side of the property line. But if only one side of the service line — public or private — is replaced, it can actually make matters worse by disturbing the pipes which can trigger spikes in lead levels. In 2012, Halifax changed to a policy of no partial replacements.

“Halifax (has) been so proactive (with) full replacements,” said Michele Prevost, a Quebec engineering professor and international expert in drinking water lead levels. “Their identification of (lead service lines) in homes is sound.”

Tainted Water, a year-long investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, found hundreds of thousands of Canadians are consuming tap water laced with high levels of lead leaching from aging and deteriorating infrastructure. Read the stories at thestar.com/taintedwater

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