The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) is working on mitigation efforts for drinking water in municipal facilities—while continuing to work on longer-term solutions for the entire community—after testing done late last year found elevated levels of lead and copper on first samplings.
A report by Kerr Wood Leidal consulting engineers dated Dec. 10, 2020 shows the results for 11 RMOW-owned buildings: The Point Artist-Run Centre; the Maury Young Arts Centre; the Spruce Grove Fieldhouse (home of the Waldorf School); the Public Works Yard; Municipal Hall; the Public Safety Building (which houses the Whistler RCMP); the main firehall; Spring Creek Community School; the Whistler Museum and Archives; the Whistler Public Library; and a house at 7235 Fitzsimmons Road North.
Of the buildings tested, only the house at 7235 Fitzsimmons Road North showed levels of lead and copper below both the Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) and aesthetic objectives (AO) on first sampling.
Of the other buildings tested, all showed lead levels exceeding the MAC on first sampling—between .005 mg/l and .299 mg/l—except for the Maury Young Arts Centre, which showed only elevated levels of copper.
Three buildings—the Public Safety Building, the Spruce Grove Fieldhouse and the library—showed levels of both lead and copper exceeding the MAC.
The buildings tested were chosen as a representative cross-section of buildings owned and operated by the RMOW. They represent a wide variety of size and age—the oldest, Municipal Hall, was built in the early 1970s and moved to its current location in 1981, while the newest is the library, constructed in 2008.
In March 2019, the federal government updated its Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality to reduce the MAC for lead in drinking water from 0.01 mg/l to 0.005 mg/l.
For copper, the MAC is 2 mg/l, while the AO is 1 mg/l.
Research has shown that there is no safe chronic exposure levels to lead, and that blood-lead concentrations—even at low levels—are linked to lower IQ scores in kids aged three to five, and the associated declines in IQ are in fact greater at lower blood-lead concentrations.
According to Health Canada, short-term exposure to copper may result in effects in the gastrointestinal tract (such as nausea, pain and vomiting, or diarrhea).
“Long-term effects are less well-documented; current evidence indicates that, in the general population, chronic exposure to very high levels of copper may lead to effects in the liver and kidney,” reads Health Canada’s website.
A second round of testing at six of the buildings, conducted after a five-minute flush of the taps followed by 30 minutes of stagnation, showed levels of lead and copper below both the MAC and AO.
However, the report noted that a single flush at the beginning of the day is “likely not adequate,” and concluded that “all drinking water outlets in all RMOW owned/operated buildings should be flushed until cold every time they are used for consumption.”
The KWL report is comprehensive, and gives the RMOW certainty on the systems found in its buildings, said Jessie Gresley-Jones, general manager of resort experience.
“I think what continues to be true and consistent is that the water the municipality is providing to all of our citizens continues to be safe, and so what the report is really exploring is the level of, in many ways, complexity of the plumbing systems that are present in our bigger facilities, that cause stagnation of the water when it’s not run regularly,” Gresley-Jones said.
“And that’s where we start to see this issue with breakdown of internal plumbing systems that needs to be resolved by simply flushing the taps.”
The main takeaway from the study is that flushing the taps works, he added.
“Flushing works—getting to a cool, consistent temperature, whether that takes 30 seconds or five minutes, that provides safe water for all residents,” he said.
CORROSION CONCERNS
The issue of corrosive water in Whistler (and indeed many communities on the West Coast) is not new, though it’s taken a backseat to the COVID-19 pandemic and other priorities since early 2020.
In December 2019, an investigative report by The Star Vancouver, Global News and the University of British Columbia found that some homes in the resort had lead in their drinking water.
As part of the investigation, reporters collected water samples from 10 homes, two hotels and one Airbnb property and had them tested for lead.
All of the samples contained traces of lead, and seven contained lead levels exceeding Health Canada’s guidelines—though more testing done after flushing the taps showed results within the guidelines.
While Whistler’s water meets all of VCH’s operational guidelines, corrosive water can leach metals like lead and copper from plumbing fixtures, as was the case in the Village of Pemberton in 2016.
The RMOW has been working on long-term fixes to address the problem locally since at least 2018, with the last public update coming in January 2020.
At that time, the capital cost to adjust pH levels—one of the main drivers of corrosivity—throughout Whistler’s complicated water system was estimated at $5.7 million, not including any land acquisitions that may be required to do the work.
Staff also estimated an extra two full-time employees would be needed to operate the systems, as well as $200,000 per year in chemicals, adding an extra $2 million to the current operating budget.
The final budget of the construction work for what is now being called the South Whistler Water Supply Project will depend on the design, which itself has a budget of $400,000, said chief administrative officer Virginia Cullen.
The original plan was to start the design work this year, but “the cyber attack [in late April] did impact that; we weren’t able to get the data and background information to the consultants at the time we wanted to,” Cullen said.
“So that is delayed, however, there is a significant amount of design work planned for next year that will catch us up, and then construction will follow after that.”
In the meantime, the message for the public stays the same: flushing your taps works.
“If everybody is flushing their taps to reach a cold, consistent temperature, the water that they’re receiving through the Whistler water supply is safe and meets all the regulations that we have through Vancouver Coastal Health,” Cullen said.
INTERIM MEASURES
Until longer-term solutions are realized, the RMOW is also working to install filters (at a cost of about $1,000 each) in each of its public buildings to cut down on the amount of water wasted by flushing the taps.
The municipality has also put in “consistent guidance” for staff in all of its buildings around water flushing procedures.
“We’re tracking who is flushing the system in the building, so it is documented, it is clear for anyone who is coming to a tap to understand when it was flushed, and potentially how long that water may be sitting there stagnant again,” Gresley-Jones said.
“So that’s been clearly rolled out and understood by everyone in our buildings.”
Most of the tenants of the buildings were understanding of the requirements, Cullen said, adding that schools and daycares have been flushing their taps since 2017.
“This isn’t a new mitigation, and is something that they already have in place, so our guidance to flush taps was in line with already existing practices,” she said.
As for water waste, the RMOW doesn’t have a volumetric estimate for how much water is being used to flush taps in the municipality, but “the biggest use of water in Whistler continues to be irrigation, and those businesses that have large water use,” added manager of communications Gillian Robinson.
In the case of the Public Safety Building, the Whistler RCMP has opted to bring in water coolers and bottled water rather than continuously flush the taps, said Officer-in-Charge Insp. Robert Dykstra.
While flushing the taps does work, the RCMP opted for bottled water “so that it’s easy and convenient for the members,” Dykstra said.
“So then they can just focus on the job, and then of course we prevent anything from getting missed at any time.”
After the RMOW made its recommendation to flush the taps, a member of the Whistler RCMP submitted a freedom of information request for the KWL report.
While not seeing the testing results up front was a little bit concerning, “I believe that the RMOW was clear in terms of recognizing that there was an issue, and providing guidance to the people that were living and working in the building to take care of the water issue, so I wasn’t concerned about that,” Dykstra said.
“I think we all agree that communication can be sometimes a little confusing or not perfect, but no, I’m satisfied with what the RMOW has done. I would have liked to have seen [the report] in the first instance, but we got to that point.”
After seeing the results, the RCMP also conducted water testing in the houses it has for members, and found elevated levels of lead and copper similar to what was seen in the Public Safety Building, Dykstra said.
“So we’ve been providing bottled water for houses where this was an issue,” he said, adding that the RCMP is also working to install reverse osmosis systems in the houses.
Pique requested a copy of the KWL report, which the RMOW provided, along with a technical briefing.
Though it was shared with council via a verbal briefing, it was not presented at a public meeting, “because it essentially confirmed what we already knew,” Cullen said.
“The only change was the amount of time it took to get to a consistent temperature, and it wouldn’t have changed any of the guidance that we had already provided to the public.”
Find more info at whistler.ca/drinkingwater.
