Proposed Changes to the Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines and Possible Impacts Based on a Case Study of Lead in Drinking Water in the Lower Mainland

By Chris Taylor

In January, Health Canada announced a proposed change to numerous compound standards in the Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines. While there are several items of note, of particular impact may be the proposed changes to the lead standard.

The current standard is an allowable level of 0.01 mg/L taken from a “flushed” sample where the water runs for a set period of time; the proposed standard drops this to 0.005 mg/L for locations such as schools and requires that the sample (in most instances) now be taken from the “static” sample or from the initial draw of the water.

Based on the data we have collected over the years for various clients, this change will be very significant. To illustrate, we reviewed hundreds of samples collected in the lower mainland during 2016 after lead in drinking water in schools became a very public issue.

As a firm, our policy has been to routinely collect static samples along with flushed samples as a means of helping diagnose whether or not potential lead contamination was coming from the municipal water supply, or from within the interior water systems of the building. In this particular area, the municipal water systems reported testing regularly for lead – but only using the flushed collection method (with all reported results being below the current guideline). In reviewing our data, while we did find several schools where lead-containing piping/fixtures were having an impact on delivered water quality, nearly all static samples collected nearest the municipal source were returning results above the existing guideline. Suspecting an issue related to the municipal systems, we were able to collect samples from outdoor hydrants extremely close to the connection points to the municipal systems and again, a very high percentage exceeded the current guideline in the static sample.

Based on this data set, and our experience in other jurisdictions, we know that if all Health Canada did was change the standard by changing from flushed to static samples, let alone cutting the standard in half, essentially all the drinking water in that region would fail the guideline. Based on other, more limited, data that we have collected, this would likely be the case in most municipalities. While it is difficult to debate a standard that is being proposed to better protect children, the logistical impacts of this change, we feel, will be significant and costly. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

Chris Taylor is Regional Practice Leader – OHS for Western Canada for Pinchin Ltd.

The School of Public Health at the University of Alberta is always looking for field practicum opportunities for Master of Public Health students specializing in Environmental & Occupational Health. Some students are interested in Workplace Health and Safety broadly  others in Occupational Hygiene specifically. We are interested in connections with companies/institutions interested in hosting these MPH students. The practicum is a minimum of 13 weeks full-time and is typically completed during the spring/summer term – beginning in early May. Occupational Hygiene placements should be supervised by a qualified occupational hygienist. Workplace Health & Safety placements could be supervised by other appropriate individuals. Companies or institutions interested in exploring this are encouraged to contact either Bernadette Quemerais at  or Ruth Wolfe at .”

The Fort McMurray wildfire that started in Alberta, Canada, on May 1, 2016 burned more than 2,300 square miles, caused the evacuation of close to 90,000 people, and destroyed nearly 2,000 structures and damaged another 19,000. Two fatalities were indirectly tied to the fire. Early financial estimates put the insurance cost at between $2.6 and $4.7 billion dollars. By June 10, the fire was nearly 73 percent contained.

By contrast, the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego County, Calif., while only one-fourth the size of the Fort McMurray fire, displaced more than 300,000 people, caused 14 fatalities, and destroyed 2,400 structures due to higher population density in the urban-wildland interface. As the effects of climate change on seasonal weather become more evident, frequent and severe wildfires in proximity to residential areas are expected to expose greater numbers of homes and people to smoke and debris from the fire and its aftermaths.

As of mid-June, Fort McMurray was under a boil-water order. Air quality throughout the region was significantly affected. Arsenic and heavy metals contamination in some undamaged homes made them unsafe to reoccupy. The alkaline ash—one of the main components of wildfires—acts as a corrosive agent, and dust suppression compounds sprayed on burned structures contain crystalline silica. Reconstruction activities can cause these substances to become airborne. Labor authorities urged employers to take all necessary steps to protect the health and safety of their workers and mitigate hazards once recovery begins.

Wildfires can impact property, the environment, and public health from the immediate vicinity of the fire up to several hundred miles from the source. Insurance claims for property damage are the driving force behind most investigations of damage from wildfire smoke. In many cases, these investigations take place several months to a year after the incident. Investigative, sampling, and analytical techniques are primarily intended to confirm the presence or absence of wildfire residues and determine the degree of damage to property and assets. The potential human health effects of wildfire smoke and residues often remain unanswered. Does wildfire residue pose a human health hazard? How do we evaluate the potential health hazard posed by wildfire residue? What are the background levels of similar products of combustion in homes? And what is the appropriate level of remediation and clean up?

Modeling Exposure to Wildfire Residues

Smoke inhalation can have acute and chronic effects on the health of wildland firefighters. Heating and cooking with wood can also have recognized adverse health effects on household residents. However, there is little information on the health risk to residents from exposure to wildfire residues in homes that are reoccupied after being affected or damaged by smoke. 

A conceptual model can serve to explore the potential adverse health effects of residential exposure to wildfire residues. In this model, the wildfire does not reach a structure. Instead, smoke from the wildfire descends upon a residential area and enters the home through roof penetrations, make-up air vents, and seams around doors and windows. Gaseous and particulate smoke contaminants entering the building settle on solid surfaces, including HVAC units and ductwork, and some are adsorbed onto carpets, floors, walls, and furnishings. When residents return home days or weeks after the fire, the smoke is no longer a direct hazard. Combustion gases and the more volatile smoke constituents dissipate and become diluted by passive or active ventilation to reduce odors.

The fate and transport of the residual contaminants depends in part on housekeeping practices, the chemicals’ partition coefficients, and the type of ventilation. The larger-size fractions of settled dust are removed by regular cleaning, while the respirable-size particulates may remain longer in the absence of HEPA filtration. Adsorbed semi-volatile organic compounds (sVOCs) continue to off-gas following their gas-solid phase equilibrium kinetics for days, weeks, and even months. At this stage, the potential health risk from the wildfire residuals is most likely from inhalation, skin contact, and ingestion of particulates—mainly char and ash deposited by the smoke, as well as the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that have become adsorbed onto the fire particulates and onto surfaces in the home.

Evaluating Health Hazards

Wildfire smoke is a veritable cocktail of products of incomplete combustion. Ash and char, the main components of wildfires, may contain heavy metals, PAHs, and dioxins and furans. Research on firefighter exposure to smoke has identified a number of constituents of potential concern: combustion gases, such as carbon monoxide; volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particularly benzene; aldehydes such as formaldehyde and acrolein; a wide variety of PAHs, including pyrene, phenanthrene, benzo(a)anthracene, benzo(a)pyrene, and benzo(b)fluoranthene resulting from combustion of organic matter; and particulate matter, principally in the PM_2.5-size range. 

The health effects of wood smoke inhalation range from acute irritation, inflammatory responses, asthma triggers, and immune system suppression to changes in lung function (measured as increased airway resistance); reduced lung function capacity; chronic illnesses, including bronchitis, obstructive pulmonary disease, and cardiac disease; and cancers of the lung, skin, and bladder.

Concentrations of VOCs, PAHs, and particulates measured at wildfire suppression and prescribed burning operations suggest that the primary sources of cancer risk in the range of one-in-one-thousand to one-in-one-million derive from exposure to benzene and formaldehyde, and that non-cancer adverse health effects above a level of concern (hazard quotient > 1) result from exposure to acrolein and respirable particulate matter. In studies of wildland firefighter risk assessment models, neither carbon monoxide nor any of the PAHs detected reached levels of concern.

Many of these compounds have also been identified inside homes, which complicates the evaluation of health hazards from wildfire smoke residues. Background sources of PAHs in urban outdoor air and in homes not affected by wildfire smoke include smoke from fireplaces and cigarettes, asphalt pavement sealers containing coal tar, and vehicle exhaust. Background PAH levels in indoor air range from 0.00027 µg/m³ to 0.05 µg/m³, approximately twice the background levels found in outdoor air.

PAHs exist in equilibrium between a vapor and a solid phase, and have a strong affinity for organic matter like charcoal. They attach to building materials and furnishings, such as carpet, gypsum wallboard, and even stainless steel, and slowly off-gas for time periods ranging from hours to weeks or months. As a result, PAHs are commonly found as a component of household dust. Typical background levels are in the range of 0.15 to 1.64 micrograms per gram (µg/g) of dust. Dust ingestion by children is the second most important route of exposure to carcinogenic PAHs, after inhalation exposure. However, household dust needs to contain more than 150 times the typical PAH background levels to pose a lifetime cancer risk above one-in-one-million.

Sampling and Analysis

The residential post-wildfire exposure scenario discussed in this article illustrates some of the uncertainties that must be addressed when evaluating human health risk from wildfire residuals. These include the composition of the wildfire smoke inside a home; concentration of chemical constituents in the smoke; fate and transport of persistent wildfire residual chemicals in the interior environment; partition coefficients of PAHs in char, ash, construction materials, and furnishings; background levels from non-wildfire sources; and the effects of ventilation and housekeeping practices on contaminant deposition and removal rates.

The wildfire impact investigator needs to have a clear understanding of the sampling technique and analytical methods to ensure that they are compatible with each other and meet the desired objectives. Various techniques for particulates, metals, VOCs, sVOCs, or gases are applicable to wildfire residue investigations. 

Depending on the objective of the investigation, particulate analysis of soot, char, and ash can be conducted through optical microscopy using reflected and transmitted light, transmission or scanning electron microscopy (TEM or SEM) supported by X-ray diffraction techniques for material composition, or a combination of methods. Sample collection techniques need to consider the desired analysis to maintain sample integrity. For instance, wipe sampling with water or solvents can dissolve ash particles and render them invisible to microscopic examination. By the same token, some lab preparation techniques can destroy the sampling media, or the sample itself.

Some of the most common sampling techniques in wildfire property damage claims are tape lifts and micro-vacuum sampling for particulate microscopy analysis, often used as part of Visual Area Estimation (VAE) analysis. This method identifies various types of particles in the sample, such as soot, ash, char, mold, cellulose, soil minerals, and other opaque particles, and reports them as percentages or numbers of each component particle in the observed field. The laboratory interprets the percentage or count in a range from normal background to uncommon, and makes recommendations as to the source of the particles or the level of cleaning needed. The results and interpretation of this particle characterization method can vary between laboratories. Because VAE analysis does not determine actual surface or mass concentrations of the identified particle types in the home, it is not appropriate for human health risk assessments. 

Air sampling methods for gases, VOCs, and sVOCs used in traditional industrial hygiene or indoor air quality investigations can be used in wildfire residue assessments. The objective of the investigation will dictate the sampling and analytical technique. Direct-reading instruments for combustion gases and VOCs can be used for initial screening. Bulk samples of furnishings or building materials can be analyzed in environmental chambers for off-gassing chemicals to identify persistent odors. Due to the long time lag between the fire and the smoke damage investigation, sampling methods that can detect residual concentrations in the parts per billion range (ppb)—such as EPA TO-15 and TO-17 for VOCs, and XAD-coated samplers for sVOCs—followed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry are often necessary. These methods can detect hundreds of chemicals at ppb and sub-ppb concentrations.

The experienced laboratory can help sort through the background “noise” to identify the signature chemical compound combinations that indicate the presence of a particular wildfire residue. Choosing experienced and qualified wildfire residue laboratories and working closely with the analysts to develop the sampling strategy is essential to produce usable and defensible data to support the interpretation of results. This is especially important in wildfire residue investigations due to existing gaps in published standard methods in this emerging area of practice.

Sampling and analytical methods specifically designed to quantify concentration and distribution of the wildfire residuals in the building and allow calculation of dose by the major routes of exposure are necessary to evaluate the human health risk from wildfire smoke. Industrial hygienists involved in wildfire residual impact investigations from the health risk perspective need to utilize sampling and analytical methods that can evaluate potential health hazards. This data can also inform the development of clean-up levels and post-remediation verification protocols.

ENRIQUE MEDINA, MS, CIH, CSP, FAIHA, is president of Alliance Consulting International in San Diego, Calif., and a member of the AIHA Environmental Issues Committee. He can be reached at (619) 297-1469 or emedina@pulse-point.com.

Dozens of groups are pressing Ottawa to join more than 50 countries in banning asbestos, a move the Liberal Party supported while in opposition.

A letter sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this month notes that Canada still allows the use of asbestos and lacks a comprehensive strategy to phase out the substance or to promote safe substitutes.

Separately, the Canadian Cancer Society has also sent a letter to the government, a copy of which was given to The Globe and Mail, calling for a nationwide ban on all asbestos products, a rare step for the country’s largest national health charity.

“It’s time to send a clear message and establish clear policy to end asbestos, end any confusion about its dangers, any confusion about the toll it’s taken, and any debate there is about a mythical ‘safe’ exposure level, and most importantly, [end] the exposure of Canadian workers and families to this potentially deadly substance,” said Gabriel Miller, director of public issues at the Canadian Cancer Society.

In an e-mailed statement, Health Canada said it will carefully consider whether further controls of asbestos are necessary, in addition to the measures the government has in place to protect Canadians from exposure.

Adding to a sense of urgency is the federal government’s plans to boost spending on infrastructure. Those plans raise concerns that asbestos in pipes, cement or other building materials could wind up in new construction.

“Given the huge investment that the federal government is going to make around infrastructure, this is the time to say ‘we’re not going to repeat past mistakes,’ ” said Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, the county’s largest labour organization, which is also calling for a comprehensive ban on asbestos.

Backed by nurses’ associations, building trades councils, unions and some city councils, the letter to the Prime Minister makes 11 recommendations, among them: passing legislation that bans the use of asbestos; prohibiting the use of asbestos-containing materials in federal infrastructure projects; and ensuring safer disposal and creating a national registry of asbestos exposure locations and diseases. It also wants to see a broad public-health response to asbestos diseases.

The World Health Organization says all types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma and other types of cancers along with asbestosis. It says the most efficient way to eliminate these diseases is to stop the use of asbestos.

But Statistics Canada trade data show asbestos-related imports rose to a six-year high last year – $8.3-million in 2015 from $6-million a year earlier. About half of that was in brake pads and linings, while this country also imported raw asbestos, sheets and pipes, clothing and fabricated products. Exports have markedly declined, but Canada still exported $1.2-million to other countries in clothing, building materials and fabricated products.

Asbestos is the top on-the-job killer in Canada. New cases of mesothelioma – a cancer caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure – have more than doubled in the past two decades. Each year, more than 2,000 people are diagnosed with asbestos cancers and other diseases, according to Cancer Care Ontario. About 150,000 Canadian workers are exposed to asbestos in their workplaces, Carex Canada estimates, among them construction workers and contractors, mechanics, shipbuilders and engineers.

Canada was once one of the world’s top producers of asbestos, and shut its last mine in 2011. The federal government in the past had defended the industry and maintained a position of “safe and controlled use,” a stand that was harshly criticized by doctors, scientists, advocates and those who have been affected by asbestos-related diseases. Countries including Australia, Germany and Britain have banned the mineral.

In an interview a year ago, Liberal MP Geoff Regan – now Speaker of the House – told The Globe and Mail he speaks for the party in favouring a ban of all asbestos use in Canada.

That’s what Renée Guay is hoping to see soon. She watched her father pass away in “unbearable” pain in 2011 from mesothelioma at age 59. He was exposed at a manufacturing plant in St. Catharines, Ont., where he worked as an engineer. Her uncle, who worked in the same facility, was diagnosed with asbestosis last year.

“It’s discouraging … and it just goes back to that Canada doesn’t have a plan, and how is this okay? We’ve known this is an issue for years, and no one’s doing anything. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The number of new mesothelioma cases rose to a record 580 in 2013, according to Statscan. Mesothelioma has a long latency period, of 10 to 50 years, and researchers expect new cases will continue to climb.

“There is no sign that we have reached the peak,” said Paul Demers, director at the Occupational Cancer Research Centre, who estimates that about 80 per cent of these cancers stemmed from workplace exposure to asbestos, and almost all of the rest “due to exposure at home from the clothes of a family member who worked with asbestos” or through other forms of environmental exposure.

His team’s analysis, based on studies of exposed workers, pegs the number of lung cancers attributable to occupational asbestos exposure at about 2,000 in 2013.

“This government stated clearly when they got elected, they’re going to be relying on science-based decisions, and there’s no question that the WHO and even now Health Canada have come to realize that asbestos is a carcinogen,” said Mr. Yussuff, himself exposed to asbestos dust when he worked at a General Motors truck plant, and wonders about the impact that has had on his health. Given the body of evidence. “I hope the government will do the right thing, because knowing that fact, why would you allow this substance to be imported, and why would you allow Canadians to be exposed to it?”

Asbestos was the most common source in workplace death claims in 2014, cited in 388 cases, most-recent data from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada show. In that year, mesothelioma was the No. 1 cause of death in accepted fatality claims.

“When you look at the No. 1 [occupational] disease that people are going to die from, asbestos is right up there,” said Dr. Andréane Chénier, national health and safety specialist with the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Hundreds of people are dying from asbestos-related diseases every year, “and you know this is going to be a very slow, very painful death. It’s heart wrenching to watch, and there’s no cure. But it’s preventable – we know this stuff is bad.”

“There is no safe use. People keep saying oh no, there are safe ways to use it – no there aren’t. There aren’t because it’s not fibres you can see, it’s the fibres you can’t see.”

In Ottawa, Michaela Keyserlingk says she’s tired of waiting. “I’m deeply disappointed” no action has been taken, said Ms. Keyserlingk, whose husband of 47 years died in 2009 of mesothelioma, after exposure as a cadet in the Canadian navy. “We lived this perfect life. And then suddenly, my husband who ran marathons and played tennis couldn’t get enough air … he survived [with mesothelioma] for the next 2 1/2 years. This cancer and lack of oxygen, he had real anxiety attacks … he was skin and bones. I terribly miss not being able to talk to him.”

“I had thought when the Liberals were elected I could now relax and think everything would be in good hands. And I’m not convinced any longer that this is the case.”

 

This article originally published in the Globe and Mail newspaper: