Lead In My Toronto Drinking Water? That’s Crazy!

Lead in My Toronto Drinking Water? That’s crazy!

 

What do you mean there is lead in my Toronto drinking water?

Lead is a poison!

Toronto Water is poisoning our citizens by allowing this water to enter into homes

and places of business – this should be illegal [ maybe a Class Action law suite to get some immediate Action].

We citizens of Toronto deserve much better, must get quality, clean and lead free water

delivered to our homes – we expect it, we pay for it through our taxes and

our water bills.

Where is the leadership at City Council?

You mean there are better places to spend our tax dollars – rather than provide our citizens with safe, clean and lead free water?

This should not even be an option. Our citizens are being poisoned and we know how to solve it. Solve it!

Toronto claims to be and is labeled a World Class City but some 13% of our citizens/ homeowners are being given lead poisoned water – they and their children (who are most at risk with mental issues in their and Toronto’s future).

This is an election year (2014) both provincially and municipally – put the urgent pressure on the candidates that if elected they will solve this urgent Priority One problem.

 

“A Toronto Star investigation warns that water pipes in 13 per cent of Toronto homes have unsafe levels of lead in them and in some cases, the levels are 2,000 times over the safe limit of 10 parts per billion.

According to the report, older neighbourhoods most likely affected are High Park, the Yonge-Lawrence area, south Annex in downtown and parts of East York.

The data was compiled from 15,000 water tap samples collected between 2008 to 2014.”

“Water service pipes were commonly made of lead prior to the mid-1950s and continued to be used to solder pipes before 1990.”

 

Is your tap water safe to drink? Here’s some tips.

• If you are in a condo higher than three floors, you don’t have lead pipes.
• Houses built before 1955 likely had lead pipes. Don’t know for sure? The house documentation might say whether the pipes are lead or if they’ve been replaced.
• Testing kits are available at Toronto Public Health offices [TPH]
• Install a filter if water tests above 10 parts per billion (You will need a special filter.)
• Boiling water won’t remove lead. However, you can “flush” your pipes: Run the water until it’s cold and let it run for another minute.

The city then began a public education campaign, provided filters and introduced new chemicals in the water to try and seal off the pipes over time.

Toronto Water General Manager Lou Di Gironimo says the only way to completely get rid of the lead from the pipes is to switch out both the public water main portion and the private home connection at the same time.

“What we were finding when we only did a partially replacement, when the homeowner wasn’t doing their side as well, you can see a elevation or spike lead level for a series of months,” said Di Gironimo.

“So whenever we do a partial replacement, we do leave homeowners with some lead faucet filters.”

According to the city, there are approximately 40,000 homes in Toronto still connected with lead pipes and Di Gironimo says the city is one pace to change about 3,000 of those a year. [Toronto Star ]

Homeowners and realtors need to know this and act according, if you are not sure – have your water tested, with the free test kit from TPH.

Yes get your drinking water tested. However put urgent pressure on City leaders to get their act together, focus and work on priorities. Cut the bureaucracy and put the emphasis on the front line engineering work(s) that needs to be done for the health and safety of our citizens and their children.

 

www.envoycapitol.com