Sludge Watch ==> Toronto to spend millions to replace lead water pipe service to homes

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Nice. Toronto spends millions to help take lead out of Toronto residents' 
drinking water, and then spends millions more putting lead contaminated 
sludge on pastureland through its sludge and sludge pellet 'fertilization' 
program.   That way rural residents and people who eat meat or milk or 
grains, or vegetables grown in sludged soils take up the lead in their food 
and dust exposure.  Perhaps in their rural drinking wells, too.

More lead is deposited on farmland in a single application of sewage sludge 
than in decades of driving past a farm in cars and trucks using leaded 
gasoline.

For more on lead in sludge versus leaded gasoline see:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_n3_v7/ai_18378775


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http://www.insidetoronto.ca/news/News/Villager/article/28774

City to spend millions to replace lead water pipe service to homes
Homeowners responsible for pipes on private property
BY DAVID NICKLE
June 29, 2007 12:42 PM
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print email feedback  Homeowners looking to get the lead out of their 
drinking water could be getting some help from the city.
Toronto's public works and infrastructure voted to look at ways to finance 
homeowner water pipe replacements at the same time as its members approved a 
$19.2 million plan to accelerate the replacement of old lead water service 
to homes across the city.

The accelerated plan will deal with homes that are serviced by lead or 
galvanized pipes and is expected to have those services replaced in nine 
years, as opposed to the 13-year wait in the current system.

However, homeowners who have lead pipes on their own property will have to 
pay for the replacement of those pipes themselves.

On Wednesday, Ward 31 (Beaches-East York) Councillor Janet Davis convinced 
the committee to find out if the city could help finance that replacement, 
by allowing residents to pay the cost of the work over time on their water 
bills.

"We should provide an incentive for residents to pay for this work even if 
they find it a hardship to pay for it all at once," Davis said.

"It doesn't make sense to replace all the pipes on the public portion if 
they're not being replaced on the private portion of the property."

Councillors recommended approval of the plan, which came forward after 
provincially mandated testing showed 31 out of 381 homes tested had lead 
levels above Ontario Ministry of the Environment standards.

The release of that number has caused a spike in the number of requests the 
city receives for drinking water testing. While in the first half of this 
year the city had just collected 160 samples of drinking water for analysis, 
since the report came out, the city has received more than 1,000 requests.