According to a Star Investigation cited in the February 28, 2020 article entitled, “A third of daycares, schools show elevated lead in water taps“, 36% of schools and daycares that tested for lead in the last three years had at least one exceedance of Health Canada’s guideline of 5 parts per billion (ppb). More than half of public schools that tested in the last three years registered at least one exceedance and, apparently, dozens of exceedances have been recorded at private schools such as Upper Canada College. It appears that no Ontario child is immune to the risk that they may ingest lead, a neurotoxin linked to negatively impacting cognitive development, while at their place of learning.
There is no known safe level of lead in a child's blood, according to EPA & Centers for Disease Control. Quebec gov't has just announced they would adopt the new "acceptable minimal concentration of lead in drinking water — five micrograms per litre." https://t.co/Gp5eme5kT9
— Fix Our Schools (@Fix_Our_Schools) October 31, 2019
The February 28, 2020 Toronto Star article followed up on initial reports back in November, 2019 examing how much lead is in our drinking water.
Despite lead in drinking water being a very serious health concern, there is no provincial policy that mandates school boards and schools to report lead exceedances to parents and students. When the Toronto Star recently contacted the Ministry of the Environment, Minister Jeff Yurek declined an interview. However, a written statement from the Ministry was sent to the newspaper saying, “the Province has provided $1.4-billion in funding in the 2018-19 school year to renew Ontario schools and ensure that major repair and replacement work can be undertaken, which could include replacement of plumbing systems and fixtures.”
Fix Our Schools would like to point out that when school boards are facing a total of $16.3-billion of disrepair in their schools (which does not even include addressing issues such as lead in water, asbestos, classroom temperatures), $1.4-billion of provincial funding in a year does not go very far. In fact, given that our provincial government has been allocating $1.4-billion/year in funding for school repairs and renewal since June 2016 and total disrepair has increased during that time rather than decreased, it is safe to presume that $1.4-billion is not nearly sufficient to even take care of the disrepair that is included in the $16.3-billion school repair backlog.
For the provincial government to suggest that school boards have the choice of using the $1.4-billion to address lead in water is disingenuous and serves only to lay blame at the feet of school boards, when school boards rely exclusively on the provincial government to provide adequate and stable funding. We look to our provincial government to take responsibility, given that they are the level of government with responsibility over both funding and policy around lead in our children’s drinking water at school. With great power comes great responsibility, as we first wrote in 2015.
Fix Our Schools had hoped we’d moved beyond the unproductive dialogue of our provincial government blaming school boards for issues with school conditions. However, given the Ministry’s latest written response to the Toronto Star, it appears we have not. We urge both Environment Minister Yurek and Education Minister Lecce to take lead in drinking water very seriously and to take the steps needed to ensure not only proper communication about this issue but also to ensure adequate funding to school boards and municipalites to properly address the large infrastructure requirements needed to deal with lead in drinking water once and for all.