{"id":13926,"date":"2019-11-05T10:14:46","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T10:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=13926"},"modified":"2019-11-05T10:14:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T10:14:46","slug":"lead-levels-in-canadas-drinking-water-worse-than-flint-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/11\/05\/lead-levels-in-canadas-drinking-water-worse-than-flint-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead Levels in Canada’s Drinking Water Worse than Flint: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

An investigation\u00a0carried out during one year by journalism\u00a0schools\u00a0has found\u00a0damning levels of lead\u00a0in the drinking water\u00a0provided in many major Canadian cities, sometimes even\u00a0higher than the levels reported in the infamous U.S. case of Flint, Michigan.<\/p>\n

The report\u00a0results from the collection of data\u00a0by a team of 120 journalists\u00a0from nine universities and 10 media organisations, including The Associated Press and the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal.<\/p>\n

Although Canadian federal authorities do not run\u00a0systematic tests of the\u00a0tap water across the country, the lead\u00a0rate\u00a0exceeded the\u00a0federal guidelines.<\/p>\n

They tested\u00a012,000 homes in 11 different cities of the country since 2014, and found that one-third – 33 percent – exceeded the\u00a0federal\u00a0guideline of five parts per billion; 18 percent exceeded the U.S.\u00a0limit of 15 ppb.<\/p>\n

“I’m surprised,” said Bruce Lanphear\u00a0quoted by AFP, described as “a leading Canadian water safety researcher who studies the effects of lead exposure on fetuses and young children.”<\/p>\n

“These are quite high given the kind of attention that has been given to Flint, Michigan, as having such extreme problems. Even when I compare this to some of the other hotspots in the\u00a0United States, like Newark, like Pittsburgh, the levels here are quite high.”<\/p>\n

The investigation also tested towns\u00a0like\u00a0Prince\u00a0Rupert where\u00a0many indigenous communities\u00a0have been\u00a0drinking\u00a0contaminated\u00a0rainwater from\u00a0ageing pipes – a factor that worsen the lead levels in tap water.<\/p>\n

However, local and federal authorities in the country are not required to run tests on the water.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the\u00a0investigation, some Canadian officials where levels were high said\u00a0“they were aware that lead pipes can contaminate drinking water and that they were working to replace ageing infrastructure,” reported AP.<\/p>\n

Other\u00a0towns, including\u00a0Montreal, were\u00a0already working to replace them.<\/p>\n

source:AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An investigation\u00a0carried out during one year by journalism\u00a0schools\u00a0has found\u00a0damning levels of lead\u00a0in the drinking water\u00a0provided in many major Canadian cities, sometimes even\u00a0higher than the levels reported in the infamous U.S. case of Flint, Michigan. The report\u00a0results from the collection of data\u00a0by a team of 120 journalists\u00a0from nine universities and 10 media organisations, including The Associated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1953,11017,7960,287,7396,10598,8995,10197,3874,3334,10574,7968,11973,9746,13301,8810,9262,9039,214,8869,594,5140],"class_list":["post-13926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-case","tag-children","tag-data","tag-homes","tag-infrastructure","tag-investigation","tag-lead","tag-michigan","tag-newark","tag-nine","tag-one","tag-pittsburgh","tag-results","tag-schools","tag-united-states","tag-universities","tag-university","tag-water","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}