Students at three Penticton schools can expect to be using bottled water for a while longer.
After high lead levels were found in water at a Prince Rupert school earlier this year, the Okanagan Skaha School District did some proactive testing and found lead in the water at Uplands, West Bench and McNicoll Park Middle School.
Doug Gorcak, director of facilities for the school district, said testing has continued to determine the extent of the problem and its source. The three schools were built before 1989, when lead-containing solder was commonly used in plumbing.
Gorcak said they have taken 75 more samples at Uplands Elementary alone, from every faucet in the school.
“We sampled it immediately out of the faucet, we sampled it after a 10-second flush and after a 30-second flush,” said Gorcak. “We came back with four key areas in the school that read high immediately and then dropped after the 10-second flush.”
There was no residual left after a 30-second flush, according to Gorcak.
“We are going to replace those faucets that had high lead sitting in them and then we will retest them,” he said. “I would suspect that prior to the end of the year, Uplands school, in particular, will be given an all clear.”
Other than those four test points, Gorcak said the water samples are well within the levels dictated by the Canadian Drinking Water Standards.
Until that all clear comes, the school district is asking students to continue filling water bottles at home or from supplied bottled water.
“We’ve opened up one fountain at McNicoll Park because it has a filter built into it,” said Gorcak. “After a test we proved there is zero lead in that drinking fountain so that one has been opened, but outside of that, we still have bottled water at all of these sites.”