Lawyers demand action on lead in school drinking water

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A leading group of environmental lawyers has asked the province to immediately address high levels of lead in drinking water at three school boards now under government control.

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“Three of the school boards now overseen by your Ministry … reported the three highest numbers of lead exceedances among school boards in the province in 2023/24,” wrote Theresa McClenaghan and Julie Mutis of The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) in a July 4 letter to Minister of Education Paul Calandra.

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The province took control of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board and Toronto District School Board last month, citing a need for strong leadership in financial management and public accountability after they had reported deficits.

In assuming control of four school boards, including the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the province is now “directly responsible to protect student health at these schools, and they have a duty to show parents how they’re going to get lead out of school drinking water,” said Mutis, a CELA community outreach worker in an interview.

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Last year, an Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) investigation found half of all public schools in Ontario have logged lead levels in drinking water exceeding the federal safety guideline at least once in the last five years.

Lead is a neurotoxin with potent effects on the developing brains of children, who absorb it at a rate four times greater than adults. It is linked to decreased IQ, a weakened attention span, motor skill challenges and behavioural issues.

There is no amount of lead that is considered safe, according to the World Health Organization.

The Ministry’s supervisors, who were announced on June 27, have faced criticism for a lack of transparency and no clear plans communicated to parents or trustees.

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“There has yet to be clear communications from the supervisor directly to us as trustees in terms of what we do for any issue, and never mind any specific issue,” said Matias de Dovitiis, trustee of TDSB’s fourth ward, when asked about how this shift in supervision could impact action on lead in schools’ water. “We received instructions not to respond directly to parents or communicate with staff.”

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Parents are being given “the equivalent of a 1-800 number” in response to their inquiries, he said.

“I’m very concerned that parents won’t have access to people that are motivated to advocate for them,” he said.

Appointed supervisors for the Toronto, Ottawa-Carleton and Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School boards did not respond to requests for comment through the Ministry of Education.

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The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board provided the IJB questions with a written statement saying “any fixture exceeding provincial lead standards is immediately taken out of service and remediated. We follow all provincial regulations to ensure these locations are safe before re-opening them for consumption.”

The IJB investigation found Ottawa schools and daycares had some of the highest lead levels in the province. More than half of all water tests conducted between 2019 and 2023 exceeded the federal safety limit for lead in at least 44 Ottawa schools.

Ontario’s lead safety guideline is 10 parts per billion (ppb) — twice the level of the federal government’s standard of 5 ppb.

Chandra Pasma, NDP member of provincial parliament for Ottawa West-Nepean and opposition education critic, said the provincial government “won’t even acknowledge that the standard for lead in drinking water in Ontario is not based on best science.”

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She said the ministry “could take action today if they wanted to, and I haven’t heard anything from the supervisors or from the Minister acknowledging that our schools have this challenge, and any steps that they’re going to take to remediate it.”

The Conservative Party did not respond to a request for comment.

The Ministry of Education provides funding to the province’s schools for capital repairs.

Last year, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimated that bringing all schools into good repair would cost $21.7 billion over 10 years. The government’s budget had an estimated funding shortfall of $12.7 billion over a decade, the report concluded.

While CELA advocates for replacing lead-laced plumbing and fixtures completely, Pasma gave the example of a cheaper, temporary fix used in the United States. Michigan’s Filter First Act was signed into Law in 2023 and requires schools and child care centres to install lead reducing filters on all drinking water sources.

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“Providing filters for every tap used for drinking water is significantly less costly and less time consuming than replacing all of the infrastructure,” said Pasma.

Pasma’s own children attended a school with failed lead tests. She had been sending them to school with water bottles already, and telling them ‘no drinking at school’.

“We’re in this situation now where parents who know can take steps to protect their kids,” she said. “Other parents I’m sure would, but they don’t know.”

The IJB has produced a searchable online database of all school and daycare lead test results over the past five years which is available here.

— The Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health is a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters.

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