The inaccuracies of the device chosen by Quebec to measure the presence of lead in school water worried the opposition parties and the I protect my public school movement. They join their voices to that of the Order of Chemists and demand that the tests which have concluded that there is no contamination be repeated in the laboratory.
These calls for a double check of the quality of school water follow the revelations of the To have to on the method adopted by the Ministry of Education to carry out this vast operation. The portable instrument acquired by Quebec to measure the amount of lead in water lacks precision, according to a study conducted by scientists from Quebec City.
Almost 43% of the results obtained with this portable device, named Kemio, are “significantly different” from those generated by the analyzes carried out in the laboratory. Another fact considered to be worrying, 11% of the data obtained using the Kemio are described as “outliers” because they are too far from the average of the results.
“It’s clear to me: after botching the air quality tests, they are botching the water quality tests,” said Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy.
Given the risks to children’s health, she says “the government should have used the best technique, the one that gives results beyond any doubt.”
Experts, even those consulted by the Ministry of Education, agree that the Kemio device is less precise than the one used in the laboratory, of the ICP-MS type. However, the portable instrument makes it possible to react much more quickly to the presence of lead than by resorting to laboratory analyzes, argued Professor Michèle Prévost, holder of the Industrial Chair on Drinking Water at Polytechnique Montréal.
This drinking water specialist stresses that the device used is primarily used to “detect” the presence of lead in water, and not to measure its absolute content. The important thing is to quickly repair or close non-compliant water points, she said.
In addition, the protocol provided for a measurement in water that had been stagnant for at least six hours, but in fact, due to the pandemic, several tests were carried out with taps that had not run for days or weeks, which makes lead screening even easier, says Michèle Prévost.
Tests have shown that 64% of water points in primary and secondary schools meet lead standards, according to the Ministry of Education.
Review of fixes
Member of Parliament Christine Labrie, from Québec solidaire, believes for her part that the government must quickly unveil the corrections made to the taps considered problematic. “They never gave a deadline to do the work. I’m afraid they’ll do the same follow-up as after the air quality tests. We still do not have an assessment of the work that has been done on ventilation systems, ”she said.
Véronique Hivon, of the Parti Québécois, also calls for a “game plan to rectify the situation”. The disaster unveiling of the results of the lead tests in the water, at the end of the Friday afternoon, appears suspicious to him. “We ask the minister to be transparent,” she said.
Patricia Clermont, spokesperson for the I protect my public school movement, considers it necessary to resume the tests which have concluded that there is no contamination. “We don’t want to end up with false negative tests. We know that with lead, there is no safe threshold. There is no risk involved, otherwise the parents will lose confidence, ”she says.