MAPLE RIDGE, B.C.—Rose Yalowica takes baths. If she was the type to take showers, she might never have learned about the threat of lead contamination in her apartment building.

The water’s blue tinge is only noticeable when it clashes against the white walls of her tub. Yalowica asked her neighbours whether they noticed anything similar, and as they filled their tubs, they too discovered their water was slightly blue.

The residents worried copper could be leaching into the water. Building management ran some tests at their urging, but as time passed the tenants grew concerned about the lack of information.

So they came to us.

We planned to take samples in three apartments from taps that hadn’t been run recently, as experts say it’s more likely tests will detect any potential metal contamination in standing samples. So we arrived at the Maple Ridge building, about 40 km east of Vancouver, just as the early morning light was starting to show above the horizon in late August.

The copper levels were well below Canada’s esthetic standards, leaving questions about the mysterious blue colouring unanswered. But elevated levels of lead, which is invisible, were detected in two samples: one from a kitchen sink and one from Yalowica’s tub faucet.

“Holy cow,” Yalowica said when she heard the results. “I’m feeling sick to my stomach.”

It’s not clear just how many homes or apartment buildings in B.C. have lead-contaminated water.

Before 1990, pipes, fixtures and solder used in plumbing may have contained lead. Provincially mandated testing has already revealed lead contamination in water at more than 120 schools. In Vancouver, politicians are now calling for more widespread testing in publicly owned buildings like community centres and daycares.

But when it comes to homes, the B.C. government says municipalities and water-system operators are only responsible for drinking-water quality up until the property line. There’s no requirement that it test the water at the tap in privately-owned buildings.

“That is a problem,” said Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

“There is an obligation, especially given how well known this issue has become in the water industry and in the health industry ... to find out what’s going on in each municipality.”

Some municipalities may be in good shape, “but there are going to be other communities guaranteed that have a big problem and they just don’t know about it,” she said.

“The starting place is not to just live in ignorance about this issue when it could be presenting serious harm to people in general and especially to children.”

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Bodies such as the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics say there is no safe level of lead exposure. Pregnant women, infants and young children are particularly vulnerable to the metal’s toxic effects.

Lead levels can accumulate in the human body over time. Even at low levels, the metal can affect children’s brain development, leading to lower IQs and behavioural issues such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In adults, lead can increase the risk of high blood pressure, kidney damage and miscarriages, according to the World Health Organization.

“We’re working on it,” said Guy Bouchard, one of the owners of the Maple Ridge apartment building. “It’s been a challenging situation.”

“If there was a bit more instruction or direction on our end it would be very helpful, but at this time, we’ve just been kind of left in the dark to deal with this ourselves,” he said.

Bouchard acknowledged there was miscommunication but said the owners sent a letter to the tenants this week to clarify where things are at.

The tests the owners had done this summer found the lead levels in sampled apartments were within standards, he said. The only sample that exceeded lead standards was taken from the boiler room, and Bouchard said the sample may have been contaminated when the bottle touched the pipe.

At this point, he said, the owners are trying to get a third party to come in and do independent testing to find out what’s happening and what the source of any potential lead contamination may be.

“The main concern is the health and safety of the tenants; that’s a big concern for us,” he said.

The metal is invisible in water, so it doesn’t explain the blue tinge Yalowica and her neighbours observed when they filled their bathtubs.

However, “the conditions that cause slightly blue water can sometimes also cause very high lead,” said Marc Edwards, a professor of environmental and water resources engineering at Virginia Tech, who helped expose the lead poisoning in Flint, MI.

“It is universally acknowledged that water lead contamination comes from building plumbing interacting with a corrosive water supply,” Edwards said in an email.

B.C. should be testing for lead in homes and other private buildings, he said, because “corrosivity of water is a key factor they can control.”

But B.C.’s efforts to reduce these public health risks are lagging behind.

For more than a decade, Ontario has required municipalities to test for lead in drinking water at a sample of private residences at least twice a year. The number of homes tested varies between five and 100 depending on the size of the community.

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If lead is detected, the municipality is required to come up with a plan to prevent corrosion by controlling the acidity of the water, McClenaghan said.

The legislation also requires the municipality to inform the occupant of the home and pass on advice from the medical health officer. Currently, though, it’s still up to private building owners to deal with lead plumbing on their property.

The rules were brought in after testing in London, Ont., revealed lead-contaminated water in a concerning number of older homes, McClenaghan explained.

Further testing revealed it was a problem across the province. In Toronto, 13 per cent of 15,000 water samples collected by city residents between 2008 and 2014 failed to meet lead standards.

In many cases, changes at water-treatment plants that made the water more acidic was to blame.

Meanwhile, in B.C., a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the provincial Drinking Water Protection Act has no jurisdiction in private buildings.

“Municipalities or the operator of the water system has the responsibility to ensure that the water that they provide in the pipes up to a building is clean and safe to drink,” said Laura Heinze. “Once that water goes into a building, it’s the responsibility of the building owner.”

David Pollock, a municipal engineer with the City of Maple Ridge, said the city takes samples from the water mains at hydrants. They are required to test for bacteriological contaminants such as E. coli and like most municipalities also test for metals such as lead.

Last year the city’s tests showed only minimal amounts of lead in the collected water samples, he said.

There wasn’t much lead showing up in the samples collected from water mains in Ontario, either. It was a different story when the Ontario government changed the rules and started requiring tests from taps in homes.

StarMetro’s tests at the Maple Ridge apartment building — and results of lead tests at schools across the province — suggest the same could be true in B.C.

In Canada, the current standard for lead in drinking water is 10 micrograms per litre (ug/L), though a more stringent standard of 5 ug/L has been recommended.

Two of the samples StarMetro collected at the 119th Ave. apartment building in Maple Ridge tested above that recommended standard.

The first, collected from a kitchen tap that had run for a few seconds, contained 8.21 ug/L of lead. Another sample, collected from Yalowica’s bathtub, contained 33.5 ug/L of lead.

A sample collected from a kitchen tap in a third apartment tested well below the standard at 0.5 ug/L of lead.

Dr. Ingrid Tyler, a medical health officer with Fraser Health, noted that lead levels can vary from day-to-day or season-to-season.

“Should there be lead plumbing in the home or building, the amount of lead that’s released into the water does depend very much on the plumbing materials used, the volume of the plumbing materials that could have lead in them, the corrosiveness of the water, as well as the length of time that the water sits in the plumbing,” she said.

For those concerned about lead, Tyler suggested running the tap for a few minutes before consuming the water or using filters certified to remove lead. Boiling does nothing.

The risks of high lead levels increases with older buildings, which is a challenge for the whole industry, said David Hutniak, the CEO of Landlord BC.

“There are no easy or inexpensive solutions,” he said.

Meanwhile, tenants at the Maple Ridge apartment building, which made the news last year when rents jumped following major renovations, are still wondering about the safety of their water.

Marilyn Bradley, who moved from Arizona with her two dogs earlier this year, said both dogs started getting diarrhea when they moved into the building. She worries the water may have been to blame.

“There’s just no communication about it, that’s where the alarm kind of gets raised,” said Richelle Benoit, who drinks only filtered water after dealing with water issues in a previous home. “This is a huge deal.”

With files from Robert Cribb

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