Nearly 84% of Nova Scotia public schools had elevated levels of lead in water

A water fountain in a Halifax-area school in September 2020. Photo: Contributed

Nearly 84% of Nova Scotia public schools had elevated levels of lead in water flowing from at least one tap in the past year, according to a Halifax Examiner analysis of testing data released by the provincial government on Wednesday.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development posted the results of tests of drinking water from schools across the province following an investigation by reporters from multiple outlets published last year. That investigation — led by Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism, in partnership with the University of King’s College journalism school, the Toronto Star, the now-defunct StarMetro Halifax and Global News — found that the majority of those schools had never tested their water for lead.

Lead is a neurotoxin known to be especially damaging to children, in whom exposure is linked to “adverse neurodevelopmental and behavioural effects” and even lowered IQ. While no level of lead is considered safe, last year Health Canada lowered the maximum allowable concentration to 5 parts per billion, or 0.005 mg/L.

The department committed after the investigation last year to test all schools and make a searchable database of the results public “by September,” ostensibly in response to the lowered Health Canada guideline. Minister Zach Churchill broke that commitment in early September, moving the goalposts and saying his commitment was to publish the results by the end of the month.

On Wednesday afternoon, the last day of September, the government posted the results online, broken into eight PDFs for the seven regional centres of education and the Conseil Scolaire Acadien Provincial.

The Halifax Examiner turned the PDFs into spreadsheets and combined them into one for analysis. You can search and sort the lead data yourself here (contact the author for a copy of the full dataset):