Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Carl Yates. I'm general manager of Halifax Water. Halifax Water is the water, waste-water, and stormwater utility serving 360,000 people in the greater Halifax area. I am accompanied by Reid Campbell, our director

Transport committee  I'm right there with you.

Transport committee  We would prefer to see one of two approaches. One approach would be to not publish a health-related guideline immediately but to work with the provinces to ensure that utilities take steps over the next few years to characterize their lead situation. The second approach is to

Transport committee  There are a lot of treatment technologies available, certainly, but the best one that we can utilize at the treatment plant is corrosion control. We actually can do a good reduction of lead by corrosion control at the treatment plant, but it's not the total solution. The bigger i

Transport committee  No, not easily. You can try to do some point-of-use devices, but that will cost you as much or more money, and then that has to be maintained by the homeowner. By taking the lead out with a service line replacement, you are getting rid of the majority of the problem, if you do it

Transport committee  It would be very cost-prohibitive, we believe, at point of use.

Transport committee  We don't have any hard statistics to point to in rural areas, other than we know anecdotally that there are fewer lead service lines. Certainly some of the rural areas would be on drilled wells and they're probably a little more modern. A lot of older areas would have started wit

Transport committee  We think there would probably be less impact. A lot of those larger buildings would have cast iron services going into them, so probably the predominant amount of lead would very well come from the older internal plumbing, meaning the lead from the solder, lead from brass fixture

Transport committee  There are certainly several. I'll touch on those and then ask our director of water services for Halifax Water to add to that. Our goal is to break down as many barriers as possible. Cost is one, right up front. People don't necessarily want to make that big investment. Also, th

Transport committee  It is not directed to that homeowner. It is spread across the entire rate base.

Transport committee  I'd say both, because it is a joint effort. I want to clearly state that it is a joint effort that needs to happen. We need to do both at the same time. The utility certainly has some funds available—most utilities do, for general service line replacements—but if there is a progr

Transport committee  Inventory is a key issue. It's one of the issues identified by the American Water Works Association and one that we identified ourselves. It will vary, no question, from one municipality or one utility to the next. Some municipalities have great records and some have poor. That i

Transport committee  We think there will be some customers who will not want to do their side of the line. There's no question about that, but we think that it's our obligation to work as hard as we can to convince them to do so. A lot of education is necessary as well as a lot of contact with the cu

Transport committee  There are a couple of things that go on, but the most important tone is that a lot of the lead gets into solid particles that adhere to the pipes—

Transport committee  Okay.