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Côte Saint-Luc still far from eliminating lead pipe problem – Montreal


Two years after an investigation revealed town of Côte Saint-Luc, Que., had a big drawback with lead in its ingesting water, some residents say the work to exchange lead pipes goes too slowly.

After reporting by World Information and Concordia’s Institute for Investigative Journalism in 2019, Côte Saint-Luc put in place an motion plan to cope with the issue.

“It’s simply dragging,” stated Sivan Rehan, who lives on Davies Ave.

Rehan was disturbed when a check commissioned by the Institute for Investigative Journalism in 2019 discovered her faucet water contained seven elements per billion of lead, barely above Quebec’s restrict of 5 elements per billion.

Two years later, she says there is no such thing as a timeline for lead pipes resulting in her home to be swapped out by town.

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“I simply really feel that the entire course of could be very gradual and we don’t even have any plan or any assure or any clue of what they’re planning on doing,” she defined.

Learn extra:
Côte Saint-Luc has some of the worst tap water in Quebec due to lead contamination

Lead pipes are most definitely to be present in houses constructed earlier than 1970. After reporting by World Information, Côte Saint-Luc introduced plans to check 3,200 houses by 2023.

COVID delayed testing in 2020, however officers now say about 1,300 assessments have been carried out. Lots of of outcomes have come again, and thus far about 70 per cent of them exceed the 5 elements per billion restrict. Residents want to enroll to be examined, and outcomes take as much as eight weeks to return again.

“I don’t know why it must take so lengthy,” stated Rehan. “I used to be very disillusioned as a result of I hoped that this factor would go a bit sooner, particularly as a result of it was delayed from final yr.”

Steve Erdelyi, the Côte Saint-Luc metropolis councillor accountable for the lead pipe file, stated the six-to-eight week wait time was all the time anticipated.

“The purpose is to complete doing this testing after which give you a complete plan to to take away all of the lead from the pipes,” he stated.

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A 2019 press release on Côte Saint-Luc’s web site stated “our workers is costing this out now to see how briskly we will do it.”

There isn’t a secure degree of lead in water. Consuming it has been been linked to hypertension, coronary heart illness, consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction in kids and different illnesses.

“The purpose is to go avenue by avenue and to cope with the the areas which have the very best lead content material and slowly take away all of the lead from all of the pipes in Côte Saint-Luc,” Erdelyi defined.

Rehan is impatient, and worries it might take years earlier than town will get round to eradicating her lead pipes.

Learn extra:
Côte Saint-Luc to offer $50 rebates for filters to get lead out of water

“We’re actually we’re up within the air with this,” she stated.

Incumbent mayor Mitchell Brownstein declined an interview request on the topic, providing Erdelyi to World Information as an alternative.

Mayoral candidate David Tordjman says if elected he’d make lead elimination a precedence.

“The lead within the water is a well being concern, one thing that residents are deeply involved about and for a motive,” he instructed World Information.

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“That’s the place we must be spending extra of our cash and placing the efforts. Employees is doing a terrific job. They only want the assets to have the ability to get this carried out.”

Erdelyi stated he feels the lead within the water is “not a political matter.”

“This can be a matter of doing the very best for the residents,” he stated.

Erdelyi couldn’t say whether or not the costly course of would take 5, 10 and even 20 years, however the faster town assaults the issue, the costlier will probably be.

“If we do it a lot sooner, it means we’ll have much less cash for different priorities and we’re doing totally different analyses to see how we will do this and nonetheless preserve town as we’ve carried out for all these years,” he stated.

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Learn extra:
Quebec Environment Ministry sends Côte Saint-Luc warning over missing drinking water reports

For now, town is altering pipes on streets being repaved, in addition to providing $50 subsidies for filtered water pitchers and $200 subsidies for filters connected to sinks.

Rehan put in filters on her kitchen and loo sinks not lengthy after World Information’ reporting in 2019.

“My kids had been nonetheless small and we didn’t need them to ingest any degree of lead,” she stated.




© 2021 World Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.





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