[-Mario-]

Lead in Drinking Water question????

I just got result of my water test and I have 160 microgram of lead per litre. The WHO says that anything above 10 is unsafe. I am on a sand point (shallow well) and the water sample was taken at the pump. My question to you guys is how is it possible to have soo much Lead in my soil??? And should I go and have my (and my family) blood tested?

[Clogeroo]

Maybe if you have old plumbing or you are on a former artillery range that could explain it.

[-Mario-]

Clogeroo wrote:

Maybe if you have old plumbing or you are on a former artillery range that could explain it.

Neither

[Clogeroo]

Maybe you should call the city or someone to come look at it? I found this american website maybe this will help you. http://www.inspect-ny.com/water/leadwatr.htm

[BartSimpson]

The lead may not be in your water source but in your plumbing. Older structures often have copper piping that was soldered with lead flux solder. This is something you may want to look into. If your house was built after about 1985 this should not be a concern.

[-Mario-]

BartSimpson wrote:

The lead may not be in your water source but in your plumbing. Older structures often have copper piping that was soldered with lead flux solder. This is something you may want to look into. If your house was built after about 1985 this should not be a concern.

My home was built in 92-93 ish, and the water sample was taken before the piping...

[Wada]

Mario I just spoke to one of my best friends who just retired from the dept. of enviroment here in Yarmouth and he was very surprised with your report. He stated that the sand of the Greenwood area should not have lead content at all per se and that if your figure is correct you should definitely check this situation out more thoroughly and felt it would be in your best interest to check your family out for lead contamination. I'm a little surprised that the dept. of enviroment did not send you a warning with your results that high in numbers.

I do hope that there is no real problem or that the problem is easily remedied.

Call your local enviroment rep and see what he has to say, and the best of luck.

[-Mario-]

I am going for Blood test tomorrow morning and having the water retested this week. I did contacted the Dept of Environment and they want us to keep them posted. If the re-test is positif... we are looking at contamination in the soil, quote unquote. The Village of Kingston (VK) was doing a survey to access if would be a good idea to switch to town water instead of wells. We already are on town sewage. The VK had the water tested in Halifax and Lawrencetown. The VK contacted us and of the hundred homes tested, a few failed the Lead test (all Century home), but only by a small margin. We are the only one that failed this huge margin.

I'll keep you posted.

[-Mario-]

Hi guys,

Just a quick note... My wife is heading into the city for a retest...

We're flanked by two streets that had the testing done and they didn't have any lead. I just doesn't make sense. I'm so hoping that it was a mistake, otherwise, the Dept. of Environment is really puzzled. Of the 100 homes tested, only five had higher than normal amounts of lead. We were the highest by a long shot, and they other homes were really old (lead pipes).

I had my blood tested. my wife's Dr. won't see her and kids until the 15th of December "because it's not an emergency".

My wife purchased a whole home carbon filter for lead and I installed last night. The Dept. of Environment says that the only problem with the carbon filters is that there is no way to know whey they've stopped working. I guess that Reverse Osmosis or distillation is best. Anyway, we should know in a week.

-Mario-

[ziggy]

Find some old timers in the area and find out what kind of history the land has. Could have been the favourite place to change engine oil back in the days when people still did that or something. Take some dirt samples from different areas around the well and get them tested for any contaminents,there may be more then lead there. Good luck.

[-Mario-]

Redid the water test the same way the Village of Kingston guy did it. THe results came back at twice the safe limits allowable > 20 ug/L. Better than 160 ug/L-> 16 times the safe limit. Shortly after we sent that second water sample, my wife figure out that the water would fail again but with better results. The guy that took is water sample did it the wrong way and I did the same mistake... He took the Water sample at the tap on a brass fitting that hasn't been touched in the past 7 years. That is why his sample was so high. Plus my PH is 4.5 -> Acidic water. When I did my first sample, I ran the water for 15 minutes, thru my kitchen sink tap... then opened that tap by the water holding/pressure tank. I filled 2 big buckets of water before taking the water sample.

My last sample, I bypassed my filter and water softener and redid the test at my kitchen tap. I ran the water for 15 mins and took the sample. I got the results yesterday and my water is under 2 ug/L.

$100 dollars and a lot of unnecessary stress later... I can put this behind me and look forward for my holidays