Heavy metal

Were you one of the 55,000 households that  received a letter in the mail warning you about lead in your tap water?

My story today talks about how tap water in homes built before 1955 may not be safe for children under six or pregnant women. These letters landed the same month the city launched its "I drink Hamilton Water" campaign, which encourages Hamiltonians to choose the tap over bottled water. Read the full story here.

The city says the problem isn't the municipal water, but lead servicing pipes on private property and older fixtures inside homes. They're recommending that anyone who lives in a home built before 1955 flush their pipe for at least 5 minutes anytime the taps have been off for more than six hours.

Obviously, the city has no control of lead pipes in private homes. However, it does seem like bad timing to launch a pro-tap water campaign the same month you warn residents their tap water could be unsafe.

Do you think this is just bad luck, or a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing? And are you concerned about the quality of water in your home?

PS - As you may have noticed, City Hall has entered the dog days of summer and posting around Hall Marks has been correspondingly light. Blogging over the next few weeks may be less frequent than what you're used to, but I promise things will pick up once city meetings start revving up again.

Comments

[St]

I would think if the owner of the house knew of lead pipes in the home the pipes would be replaced.I guess just a case of lack of upgrade,if at all possible.I drink tap water i prefer it to bottled water.

[JR]

While listening to the B Kelly show on Friday morning, a chemist called in to respond to the current lead issue in Hamilton water. He stated that by the City altering the PH of the water, the city is causing the lead to be leached out of the piping which causes the increase of lead in the test area (Hamilton). If the simple solution is to run the tap for the proposed 5 minutes then to ensure public safety reduce the water and sanitary charge by the same dollar amount as the flushing would consume. It would seem that the problem surfaced after the introduction of chemicals were added to the water supply to reduce the PH, thus saving the city piping but causing a safety hazard to the public.

[Kathy hagan]

Certainly bad timing for the drink Hamilton water campaign. What will the city say when we cannot drink the water next month because of the high Algae content? With the summer we ar having the water from our tap will smell so bad that no one will think of drinking tap water lead or no lead.

[ed]

Politicians couldn't care less whether we get poisoned or not, its about selling hamiltons poluted tap water..thats all!!

[Brian]

Very interesting posting by JR, it is a fact that the ingestion of lead over time can lead to many health problems including the "Mental" kind! This leads one to wonder whether the "Affected" 55,000 households should partake in the forthcoming vote for Ward Councilor's and Mayor considering the poor choices they made in the previous elections, of course we will have to seek another reason for the rest of the City!

[Burke Austin]

55,000. is a lot of homes for sure but the lead pipes were installed by the builders not the city. My house was built in 1945, they have come in and tested it 3 times and our water is lead free. Interesting to note that taxpayers are paying 250 million dollars for a tertiary treatment for the wastewater treatment facility, the largest tertiary membrane facility in the world, maybe the water that we are pumping out into the harbour via Redhill Creek will be cleaner than the water we are getting from our taps!