Transport Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2017

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

Think about the post-World War II boom that Ms. Grenier was talking about. We needed houses built quickly and had to find materials that were cheap and quick and pliable. Lead would fit that category quite reasonably. For post-World War II homes, it's very common to sometimes have lead components inside them, and lead service lines in particular.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Turning that on its head, after what spot on the calendar would you say that new houses built after a certain date would have....

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

It's a great guess. Somewhere around the sixties would be a reasonable guess, depending on the city. Somewhere around the late sixties or mid-sixties would be a reasonable guess for some cities. It's not entirely clear, because some cities did things earlier than other cities.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Ellis.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Gagnon, you spoke about treatment with phosphorus. I wanted to dive down into that. That's about treatment at municipal water plants at the source. In terms of treating with phosphorus, I guess what I'm getting at is that what comes out of the tap usually goes back into the waste-water system, so we have phosphorus and blue-green algae, which is a whole other discussion for a different day.

Our waste-water plants in Ontario are monitored. I think the Ontario government in the next year or two is going to lower phosphates that are emitted from plants and will know what the rate is of each Ontario waste-water plant, so they might have to create a different system.

Does this type of treatment you're talking about dissolve in the system, or does it go back to the waste-water plant? That would endanger our waste-water plant and, again, cause blue-green algae in the system.

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

You've hit the nail on the head with regard to the problem utilities face. I mentioned Regina, and they are very reluctant to add phosphate for this very reason. They discharge their waste water into a river system. Blue-green algae would be a top priority for them.

Other chemicals could be carbonates or silicates, or there could be pH adjustment, which Ottawa does. They adjust their pH to a much higher level. Each utility would have almost a unique, tailored program. The phosphate issue is an important one for many utilities in Ontario and certainly in western Canada.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

My next question is on Energy Star. I believe that was probably mandated by the utilities and picked up and paid for by the end-user. I guess what I'm getting at is that water rates in most municipalities are monitored and metered, and it's a user-pay system, as is the case for electricity.

I believe a lot of the electrical distributors have been mandated to do Energy Star programs, but then that is based back and put into the rate they can charge the utility customer. When you suggest an Energy Star system, what about a system that would also be able to be put back into the water rates and adjusted?

You're sitting here and saying the federal government should pay for it. I think in the notes it was $5,000 or $6,000 a house, which isn't a lot of money spread over time. To go back to the energy side, if the electrical box in a house is not running right, you shut the electrical grid off and make them repair it, but if houses have lead pipes that are poisoning our children, we don't seem to have the moral authority to go in and look at this.

From the Ontario side, or from the Canada side, or from your agencies, have there been any suggestions to say to municipalities, especially those that still have lead pipes in their systems, that maybe building permits and so on will not be issued...the same way they do for waste-water plants?

[Michèle Grenier]

The information I found on the Energy Star program is hosted on the Natural Resources Canada website. I'm not aware of whether it was eventually funnelled back as a user-pay system.

On the user-pay issue, yes, I think that tax rolls are one way to finance the replacement. Some municipalities are looking at 10-year interest-free amortization of that cost on the homeowner's tax bill. As Bernadette mentioned, one of the other options is to engage with the provincial real estate associations and make the disclosure of a lead service line mandatory as part of the transaction when you're selling your home.

Fundamentally, the issue is not with mothers or parents with young children. Where we see the most resistance to changing out the lead service line is with more mature customers, who feel that they are outside of the risk zone for the negative impacts on their health from lead, and they don't feel a personal incentive, whether based on their health or their finances, to complete that replacement.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

In the case of asbestos, I believe municipalities across Canada have to locate all the asbestos in their buildings, and every year or two years hire somebody to come in and look at it. Are we not holding municipalities accountable for their lead pipes and where they are in testing for those? From your testimony, it seems as though maybe municipalities themselves don't even have an inventory of what lead they have in the ground.

[Michèle Grenier]

I would say some municipalities have very well-defined lead service line identification programs, while others don't. Again, some of the records from the 1940s—or the records from the 1920s, for that matter—may no longer exist.

The issue we face particularly in Ontario is that we—and when I say “we”, I mean the lawyers for the province—among the different ministries have not agreed to a definition of property. Where does the municipality's property end and where does the homeowner's property begin? What rights does the municipality have on the homeowner's property?

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ellis. We go now to Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much.

The Library of Parliament provided us with a document that quotes a book, I think, indicating that they believe 200,000 Canadian homes are still connected to municipal water systems through lead service lines from the property line. That seems like a big number. I'm sure it's completely legitimate—it's at least 200,000—but I believe the city of Flint has identified 15,000 lead service lines to a city of under 100,000.

It seems to me that the estimate could be extremely low. Is that possible? How solid is this number? It could be two million; I don't know. If Flint has 15,000 in a city of under 100,000, it seems completely possible that there could be half a million homes with lead service lines. How solid are we with this 200,000 number? Where is it at, exactly?

[Bernadette Conant]

As I said before, my gut feeling is that it probably is low. We're not solid on that number.

Part of it is the issue that you mentioned: do municipalities know where their pipes are? Even though they're solid pipes, there weren't records kept at the time, in most places, of what materials were used. Sometimes when houses are renovated, they change. Some places have a better handle on it than others; Halifax can speak to that.

Just using the expectations for the places that are focused on, it goes into the 200,000s—that's the number I have seen—but I expect it's larger. I don't know how much data there is. Graham may be more familiar with it.

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

To place it in context, the estimate for the city of Chicago is about 300,000, so for Canada 200,000 would be a bit low. If you doubled it to 400,000 or 500,000, maybe you would hit it right.

There is a complexity to it. Some cities, to get lead out, at one point in time removed their side and left the homeowners' side. They had inventory of what they removed, but they didn't have inventory of what the homeowners had, so there is this added burden of some partials that exist across Canada where the city may not have records, as well as the full service line itself. The number is probably greater than 200,000. It may be around half a million; who knows? It's probably in that kind of ballpark, though.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay.

I know that some rural communities in Ontario have implemented mandatory septic checks. They empty out your septic system and have an inspector come in to look for cracks, etc. Is that something municipalities should consider—having somebody come in and do mandatory lead service line checks to identify if there are lead service lines leading into your house? You could live there for 20 years and maybe have no idea.

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

One challenge with lead service lines is that it's sometimes very difficult to look inside the home to find evidence of the lead pipe itself.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I was thinking of digging—

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

If you start to dig, with the amount of equipment and cost to have a construction firm on site, you might as well replace it.

You have to remember, when you think about your own home or your neighbours' homes, that some people have very complex front yards. If you start to dig holes in those complex front yards, which might have gardens or decks, it will be a costly venture for some homeowners just to find it.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

All right.

In terms of parts per billion, in the U.S. with the EPA, is it 15 parts per billion?

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

In the United States they use an action level. The action level is 15 micrograms per litre. The action level basically means that if a city saw 90% of their homes at greater than that action level, they would have to require corrective action. That's very different from a maximum acceptable concentration, which is what Health Canada uses.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

All right.

The other part is that I think I would probably lean against asking the Canadian Real Estate Association—I mean, you could consult with CREA—about including that in their offers or sales. I think you're putting the burden on the realtor at that point if you have them put that in the contract, and I'm not sure they're looking to do that.

I think by law, with urea formaldehyde—

[Prof. Graham Gagnon]

Right.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

—and if you're by an industrial wind turbine plant, you have to do that, but there's probably a limit to what you can expect a realtor, or even a homeowner, to adequately understand.