In the fall of 2021, City staff proceeded to collect water samples from willing participants on 9th Street from 8th Avenue to 12th Avenue, to determine the number of lead water services that may exist within its network. Results suggest that the 100+-year-old water mains likely have a portion of lead water service to the properties in the ground, which may not be visible without excavation. The section may be on the City side (public) or private side.

Results from the test have been brought to light, with samples of water sent to the Saskatchewan Research Council for analysis. 45 of the 58 properties participated, of those properties, 11 homes were found to have lead levels that exceed Health Canada’s Maximum Acceptance Concentration guideline of 0.005 mg/L.

The regular meeting of the City Council on Monday night approved a recommendation to expand its ongoing lead water service testing program for a further 2-year term. The recommendation asked that staff be authorized to explore lead service remedial action policies.

Mayor Behiel was all for the expansion of the test program, stating, “It’s tantamount to say that the health and safety of our citizens is our utmost priority as well, so I am definitely in favour of a program like this. Hopefully, we can find some remedial actions once we get into that to determine how severe the issue really is on a larger scale.”

The department of Public works recommended expanding the program to include all century-old locations, to a total of 622 properties resulting in a cost of $22,000 per year to be funded from Utility operations. Each test comes at a cost of $70.

Residents in the areas selected for testing will be notified and encouraged to participate in the program and will be notified of the test result once completed.