Lead Water Pipes - Timeline for Replacement
Hon. Jon Gerrard (River
Heights): Mr.
Deputy Speaker, President Biden recently announced spending of $45 billion
to replace all lead water pipes in the United States to prevent lead poisoning
of children. Newark, New Jersey, has nearly completed replacing its lead pipes.
Regina in Saskatchewan will replace all lead water pipes by 2025.
I table information showing there
are 23,000 homes with lead water pipes in Winnipeg. Based on a sample from two
years ago, about 20 per cent of these homes have high lead levels in
their water.
When will the Province replace all
lead water pipes in our province and by which year? And has the Province even
completed replacing all lead pipes to all schools and all daycare centres in
Manitoba?
Hon. Heather Stefanson (Minister
of Health and Seniors Care): Well, I want to thank the member opposite for mentioning
President Biden. And we want to actually extend our congratulations and thanks
to President Biden for offering, for ensuring and authorizing North Dakota to
be able to vaccinate more than 4,000 of our truck drivers here in Manitoba.
And, certainly, Mr. Speaker, I
know, on the other issue that the member opposite mentioned, I know that we're
working diligently to ensure that we protect all Manitobans when it comes to
our water system, and we'll continue to work on that.
Petition:
Hon. Jon Gerrard (River
Heights): I
wish to present the following petition to the Legislative Assembly.
The background to this petition is
as follows:
Many renters and tenants living in
Winnipeg are unaware of the potentially high levels of lead in their drinking
water due to lead water pipes.
Drinking water with lead levels
higher than 5 micrograms per litre is above Canada's national standard for
drinking water quality and may be damaging to health, especially for children
and expectant mothers.
According to medical research, renters and tenants unaware of the potentially high lead levels in
their drinking water because of old, lead pipes are at risk of experiencing
greater levels of mental illness.
High levels of lead in drinking
water due to lead pipes disproportionately affects Indigenous and lower income
communities. A 2019 intrinsic study used data on lead exposure to predict that
many children living in Point Douglas will have high and worrisome lead levels
in their blood.
Lack of knowledge of lead levels in
water may result in the continuation of ongoing lead-poisoning-related health
issues for thousands of renters and tenants living in Winnipeg and elsewhere in
Manitoba.
We petition the Legislative
Assembly of Manitoba as follows:
(1) To urge the provincial
government to immediately act by requiring landlords to inform renters and
tenants if their rental units have lead water pipes.
(2) To urge the provincial
government to provide an adequate number of water filters on an annual basis
for tenants where there are rental units with lead pipes.
(3) To urge the provincial government
to immediately act by requiring the City of Winnipeg to replace all lead water
pipes in Winnipeg by 2027, as the City of Regina is now doing.
This petition is signed by Ben
Kramer, by Hilary Druxman, by James Favel and many, many other Manitobans.
For those interested in more information on the impact of lead, please read our report by clicking on this link.
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