Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:32 on 2024-12-17 Permalink Reply  

• Poutine Pundit 15:47 on 2024-12-17 Permalink

  I’ve had to filter my water for the past two years. I got a pitcher and water filters at first, but the city is now asking me to pay for my own water filters, which is a bit rich given that I still pay as much water tax as everyone else but am not getting drinkable water.

• maggie rose 00:05 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  Because I live in an apartment building, 100 units, I have little say or info about lead in our pipes. I tried looking up those city lead maps, but they are not well made. I asked my (SHDM) bldg manager a few years back if we had the lead pipes replaced yet. She produced a letter from the city (wish I got a copy) saying nope. I’ve been using brita with the blue filters (best I can afford) that purportedly remove lead, since I don’t trust the reliability of the city continually supplying freebie filters. There was no effort from SHDM to inform all the tenants here and I’m not exactly big on socializing due to extreme gossip-y-ness here. Lead may not affect older people like it does with children, but it still does. Shame on the city.

• MarcG 09:04 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  maggie, I just took a look at the city’s lead-pipe map and it seems to work ok for me. I’d like to help you find out if it’s something to be concerned about because uncertainty sucks and you might be needlessly filtering your water.

  Here are the steps I followed:

  • Open a Chrome browser
  • Visit https://services.montreal.ca/presence-plomb
  • Accept the conditions by checking the box and clicking the button
  • Start typing your address, without the apartment number, in the top left text field
  • Select it from the auto-complete options that are presented. If your address doesn’t appear, simply type in your postal code
  • Click on the white circle that is linked to your building, you can use the mouse scrollwheel or the +/- buttons in the top right corner to zoom in and out to make it easier to find
  • After clicking the circle the left pane will update with the results.
  • Under “Résumé”, hopefully you will see “L’entrée d’eau n’est pas en plomb” which means there’s no lead.

• maggie rose 11:00 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  Thanks MarcG. This map is much improved from the last time I checked. I easily found my location & status. Though now I’m more confused. “The water inlet should not be lead, because the building was built after 1970 and/or has more than 8 dwellings. January 7, 2022: Inspection – The City’s inspection cannot confirm the material of the water inlet inside the building.” Should not be and cannot confirm. Hmm. Not very definite, is it? Maybe I’ll contact my building managers again. I’m always bugging them about something, so I’ll have to add this to my list. Stressful because SHDM’s managers get long-term illness time-outs regularly and I have to start over again with different ones.

• Joey 11:20 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  Regarding the city tests, when the evaluator came to our place a few years ago, I seem to recall she let the water run for a good 45-60 seconds before taking a sample. Doesn’t that up the chances that you’ll get a false negative? My memory’s a bit hazy, but I recall being unconvinced about the ‘negative’ results…

• dwgs 12:29 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  I would think that running the water for a minute before testing empties what would have been in your interior pipes, thus ensuring that you’re getting a sample that has recently passed through the entry.

• Kate 12:48 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  The building where I live comes up as uncertain results. The evaluator also let the water run before taking a sample, and even at the time he said he thought someone would have to come back and test again.

  I’ve been filtering my water into a pitcher for years, though – even the cat gets filtered water, something an acquaintance once laughed their head off at. But I figured, a cat would be getting much more lead per body weight, if indeed there is any lead…

• Ian 13:06 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  We were simply told point blank that any place built before the 70s can be assumed to have lead, at least from the street intakes. I use an on-tap filter – removes heavy metals & chlorine. We have a lot of scale in Montreal though with all the limestone so I find filters never last as long as they say they will on the package.

• Joey 16:18 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  I guess my point was that unless you’re in the habit of running the water for 45-60 seconds before you use it (after a period of not using it, like hours – not days), the test doesn’t give an accurate representation of how much lead is in your water. I suppose it can determine whether the city’s infrastructure is full of lead, but that’s only part of the equation. We also use a Brita filter (even if our results were negative), which I think is a bit of a shame – cities spend a ton of money, time and expertise to give us high-quality, safe, on-demand drinking water, and yet we all feel an urge to go out and do our own filtering (or just eschew tap water for bottled).

• Kate 17:14 on 2024-12-18 Permalink

  Joey, I always figure that intermittently flushing the toilet would refresh the water in the pipes, at least to some extent.