Transport committee  Well, you've touched on a topic that's dear to our hearts and almost as interesting as lead, and that is leakage control. We're also leaders in leakage control in North America. We have adopted international best practice to chase down leaks early, when they're small. We have co

Transport committee  Shame on the utility for not acting sooner. We would certainly be able to detect that with our own system. If we have high usage by our customers, we analyze the bills and automatically send a call-out to the customers to alert them to high use. We're able to give good advice.

Transport committee  If you do not have a meter, you will have one heck of a hard time determining whether or not you have a leakage, for sure. I would strongly recommend that all municipalities in Canada put meters in the system. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.

Transport committee  We like to start, certainly, with leadership. There are really two aspects, I think, for our organization. Our governance structure is very different from that of many utilities across Canada. I guess in simple terms we are like a crown corporation of the municipality, and we a

Transport committee  There is less political involvement; that is correct. I will name that for you. We do well by that model. We have two regulators. We have water quality and effluent monitoring, and we have business monitoring by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board. Between those two regula

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.

Transport committee  There are a couple of things that go on, as Dr. Gagnon has said, but we believe that one of the most important things is that a lot of the lead is in the form of solid particles that have adhered to the inside of the lead service line. When that's cut, disturbed, moved, or rolled

Transport committee  There's lead in older solder, which was put in prior to 1960 with different service lines. There's also quite a bit of lead in brass fixtures. In older buildings, lead will come into solution from those types of fixtures.

Transport committee  I think it's one part of the solution. I believe that corrosion control is a very important part of controlling lead, but we do not rely on it in and of itself. We believe that because of the disturbances in the system in terms of the galvanic cell created between lead and copper

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  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.