An interdevelopment working group is putting new measures in place at the two Yellowknife area schools affected by lead contamination in their water system. The group is focused on creating new protocols and territorial-wide testing of grade schools, expected to begin in September. The GNWT recently announced that École William McDonald Middle School and Range Lake North School will see new measures to improve drinking water safety and address concerns about lead.
Findings of elevated lead levels in two Yellowknife area schools were first made public in May. The source of lead in these schools has not been confirmed and officials say precautionary steps will be taken to remove potential sources of lead to ensure students and staff have safe drinking water. In the meantime, both schools will continue to use bottled or alternate water “temporarily” for drinking and cooking at both schools, said officials from the school drinking water working group in an announcement on Aug. 6.
Michael Auge, a manager at the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and current lead on the school drinking water working group, told True North FM that they are confident that activated carbon filters combined with replacing the fixtures and fountains will address the issue in William McDonald School.
“This is a solution that has proven to be effective and is used in other jurisdictions throughout Canada. We did consider the option of pipe replacement for William McDonald, but given the time frame that would be required and the work that would be required to do this, it wasn’t the best option,” said Auge.
Time, along with costs, were factored in the decision not to replace the pipes.
“It would be probably a four to five month process from design through the tendering and then implementation of the pipe replacement and then that actual pipe replacement work would be very intrusive work. So either we would be disrupting the classes and the students during the school year would have to have been pushed off until next summer and if we’re pushing it back that far we would have needed a temporary solution anyway, so just given all those factors and the fact that the pipe replacement was probably about four to five times as expensive as the activated carbon filters is going to be. And we are very confident the activated carbon filters are going to address the problem, (so) it was the solution we went with,” said Auge.
The estimated cost of the carbon filter system is between about $75,000 to $80,000.
The follow-up and ongoing testing to confirm water safety before and after drinking for William McDonald and Range Lake North schools is going to be done by GNWT staff with assistance from YK1 maintenance personnel.
“We have folks with Municipal and Community Affairs who have done water testing in other areas, for other reasons and they’re helping us train the appropriate personnel. So that the tests are done properly and in accordance with Health Canada guidelines and best practices from other jurisdictions and any other information that we get from the manufacturers of the filters and products that we’re using,” explained Auge.
The group is doing a survey of all the regions in Canada, all the different jurisdictions and what other jurisdictions use for best practices, and will base the new protocol (such as how often testing will be done) on those findings.
“(The protocol) will be based on Health Canada guidelines, recommendations from the manufacturers and general best practices.
There is also a plan to perform a thorough testing protocol at all the schools throughout the NWT during this upcoming school year.
“Currently, we have an interdepartmental working group that’s kind of putting together the protocols and testing and prioritization plan for all the schools in the NWT and then we will be conducting the testing at every school,” Auge continued.
Which schools come first will be based on factors such as the age of the school, the age of the students that are attending, the previous sampling results we have and the quality of the water within the community and within the school.
“We haven’t finalized that list yet, but it is being developed. And the intent is to start testing pretty early on in the school year, throughout the territory.
One factor is water quality, which will be determined from the results of initial sampling for schools were it was done.
“Not really a formal testing program, but there’s also water quality information that we have from the communities from testing,” Auge explained.
“Each of the communities is required to do on their own water testing and so some of those water quality, some of those aspects of the water, play a role in susceptibility to lead within the system. So that’s a factor being taken into consideration for the prioritization,” added Auge.
The school in Fort Smith and the school in Paulatak that have yet to be tested will likely be among the first schools to receive testing under the new protocols.
“They will likely be, just given – knowing which two schools, those are and the age of schools, they will likely will be one of the higher priority groups, but like I say we haven’t finalized that yet.”
Auge said testing was not done over the summer because the group has been working throughout the summer with their focus on Range Lake North and William McDonald Schools.
“So we’ve been working on coming up with solutions for the issues that we’ve discovered there, but we’ve also been working on finalizing a formal protocol and testing procedure for all of the schools. We want to make sure we’re doing it, right and doing it in accordance with Health Canada Guidelines and best practices from other jurisdictions.
There is no estimate available as yet on the cost of testing.
“We don’t have an estimate on the testing. We’re going to try and do as much of it as we can in-house. For example, there’s folks at the Municipal and Community Affairs Department that regularly go to the communities and do other water testing, so we’ll be working with them,” said Auge.
“We’re working with folks from the Department of Infrastructure to get the information and develop the plans specific to each school that we’ll be going into and in-house, but we do not have a price tag for what it’s going to cost,” added Auge.
Auge said the working group wants parents to know they are concerned and are taking action.
“We’ve developed this interdepartmental, GNWT approach to this so that students have access to safe drinking water for the start of the school year here.”
