Markham’s First Community Lead Testing Program A Success

All results show lead contaminant levels well below provincial standards

MARKHAM, ON - June 17, 2008 - Markham’s first voluntary residential water quality testing was completed in March of this year. The test revealed lead levels well below provincial standards for all 148 residential homes that were sampled. The Waterworks department will be performing the community wide, volunteer sampling twice a year.

The next testing periods will take place from June 15 – October 15, 2008 and then December 15, 2008 – April 15, 2009 and June 15 – October 15, 2009. If results from these tests are within acceptable limits for lead, the program will continue every year with the number of locations to be tested reduced in half.

The volunteer program was initiated in November, 2007 through a community information campaign to over 22,000 residents in Thornhill, Unionville and Markham Village. The first priority of the campaign was older homes (pre 1953) that may have lead water service lines or lead piping in their homes.
Since 1980 the Markham Waterworks department has been replacing aging water mains and water service lines and all known lead service lines from the municipal water mains to residential property lines.

“We were very pleased with the community response to the lead testing program and the encouraging results from the first tests“, said Mayor Frank Scarpitti. “The community response to this program has been excellent and residents are to be congratulated for their efforts.”

The residential lead test results from the first period ranged from <0.001 mg/L to 0.0037 mg/L. The provincial standard requires that lead levels not exceed 0.010 mg/L. The same residential test locations will be used for the next period of testing that will resume later this month and continue throughout the summer.

“The purpose of the community lead testing program is to determine if communities have detectable levels of lead in drinking water sources”, said Councillor Alex Chiu, Chair of Markham’s Community Services committee. “Our repetitive testing program gives residents a high level of confidence in their water quality. I’m pleased that our results to date are so encouraging.”

The community lead testing program is a permanent program offered by Markham and reflects changes to the Drinking Water Systems Regulations – Reg. 170/03 that was put in place by the Ontario government in July, 2007.