One year after the Star began asking questions about lead concentrations in drinking water at schools and daycares in Ontario, the province’s education ministry is telling boards they must inform parents when a school fails a lead test.

That new direction was given days before the Star published a story showing that more than 640 schools and daycares failed lead tests in the past two years. Many parents had been kept in the dark.

Since then, parents in some schools have been notified as a new round of annual water sampling reveals more contaminated drinking water.

More than 180 schools across five boards have failed at least one lead test this year, according to new 2017 lead data the Star requested from a handful of school boards this month.

Yasmin Klement, a Mississauga parent who was informed of high lead levels at her children’s school more than two months after they were detected, said the delayed notification left her with “a little less trust in the school system.”

In response to the new round of exceedance of water-quality standards, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter said in a statement that “every child in a child-care centre or school in Ontario is drinking clean, safe water. Our standards are the strongest in Canada and we have strict rules in place requiring immediate action should an issue arise.”

Ontario is the only province to require both schools and child-care centres to conduct annual tests for lead in drinking water. New rules established this year require every tap used for drinking water to be tested by 2020 in schools and daycares with primary divisions, or 2022 for all other schools. Previously, schools were only required to test one tap a year.

Although these are positive steps, experts say the standard for lead — 10 parts per billion — remains too high.

Bruce Lanphear, an expert in the effects of toxins in children from Simon Fraser University, said a standard of five parts per billion would be more in line with the latest scientific evidence. Over the long term, he said, it should be further reduced to one part per billion, currently a voluntary target in Ontario.

Bodies like the World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics agree there is no such thing as a safe level of lead exposure.

Young children are particularly vulnerable, as they can absorb four to five times more ingested lead than adults, according to the World Health Organization. WHO also notes that lead can affect children’s brain development and result in lower IQ scores at lower levels of lead exposure that were previously considered safe.

In her October memo to boards, Hunter said, “I am asking the education sector to check relevant policies so parents and guardians are informed in a timely manner of any lead exceedance detected in their school or child care centre.”

Previously, the circumstances in which parents would be notified of a high lead level varied among school boards.

Some said parents were only notified in the event that an exceedance required a school to provide bottled water.

Two boards — Toronto and Peel — said their understanding before the minister’s memo was that the province did not expect school boards to proactively notify parents of all lead exceedances.

In the Toronto public school district, parents were notified when an investigation into a high lead result required classes or schools to bring in bottled water, said Ryan Bird, a spokesperson for the board.

Bird said the Toronto District School Board will ask for more clarity about the circumstances that should trigger parent notification under the ministry’s new direction.

In the meantime, 41 schools in the board have failed at least one lead test so far this year. In each case, actions were taken to remedy the situation, Bird said.

In Peel public schools, lead testing and any required repairs were undertaken in the summer months. Parents would be notified if an exceedance wasn’t resolved during the summer, said Kayla Tishcoff, a spokesperson for the Peel District School Board.

“Previously, it was only required to test one fixture per school location. Lead exceedances were uncommon, and they were almost always resolved during the summer months,” she said.

Peel school board took a more proactive approach this year, testing all taps in primary and elementary schools. More than 75 schools in the district failed at least one lead test.

Following the minister’s memo, those schools received a letter to send home to parents in October, Tishcoff said.

Klement, whose 6- and 9-year-old sons attend Whiteoaks Public School in Mississauga, received a letter on Nov. 6 informing her that lead concentrations above the provincial standard had been detected.

“Initially, I was kind of angry,” she told the Star.

“I was, like, ‘wait a minute; this is not a lot of information here,’ ” she said, adding that she was concerned for her kids’ health.

The letter said a lead exceedance was found in at least one drinking water or food preparation source during regular water sampling and that the school took corrective actions as directed by Peel Public Health as soon as it was made aware.

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“If necessary, our school made alternate arrangements to ensure staff and students had access to another water source,” it added.

The letter did not provide any information about when the sampling was conducted or what lead concentrations were detected.

When Klement learned from the Star that the testing had been conducted over the summer and that lead concentrations above the provincial standard were found in samples from four of the school’s 22 fixtures, it was a “big concern” for her that parents were notified only in November, she said.

“We had a right to know there was a problem then and there,” she said.

Three of the exceedances at Whiteoaks were discovered in standing samples, which are taken from taps that hadn’t been used for at least six hours, and ranged from 11.8 parts per billion to 17.8 parts per billion. To address these exceedances, the school was directed to implement daily flushing, Tishcoff said.

The fourth exceedance was discovered in a fountain that had a lead concentration level above 10 parts per billion in both standing (15 parts per billion) and flushed (15.4 parts per billion) samples. It was removed after re-samples also showed lead exceedances.

Hunter indicated in a statement that lead concentrations above the standard are uncommon.

“It’s important for parents and kids to know that over 98 per cent of those facilities meet or are better than Health Canada’s standards,” she said, adding that when exceedances are discovered steps are taken immediately to address them.

Often that involves flushing the taps more frequently by letting the water run for a period of time. The province says this approach has in many cases effectively reduced concentrations

Lanphear, though, told the Star that flushing is not a long-term solution.

When asked about the results at Whiteoaks, he said the school should stop using the fountain where a lead exceedance was detected in flushed samples, which the school did. He also said the school should investigate the cause of the lead in fountains where concentrations above five parts per billion were detected and plan to repair them within a couple months.

He said he wouldn’t recommend blood-lead testing for students or teachers unless they have consistently used a contaminated drinking water source — five or more times a day.

“Ideally, nobody would be drinking out of lead pipes,” said Krista Wylie, the co-founder of the advocacy group Fix Our Schools. But neither school boards nor principals have access to the funding needed to undertake a “huge infrastructure overhaul,” she said.

Hunter said the province does have a long-term plan to address lead in drinking water at schools and daycares, including an allocation of $1.4 billion for general school repairs and upgrades this year. Wylie said it’s not enough to address the backlog of various repairs needed at schools across the province.

That would take nearly $16 billion, she said. “How is it that the buildings where two million Ontario children spend their days have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent?”

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