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Manitoba testing community's drinking water for lead

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The Manitoba Government is monitoring the drinking water in a number of communities to test for lead.

On Tuesday, the province confirmed it is working with water systems to find any lead exposure in Manitoba’s drinking water.

This comes after Health Canada created new guidelines for lead in drinking water in 2019, prompting the Manitoba government to adopt the guidelines as the standard. The province also created a lead in drinking water website and developed an operation guideline for water systems.

When it comes to lead monitoring programs, the province is prioritizing older, larger water systems that have known or suspected lead services. Lead monitoring was brought into Winnipeg in 2019 and then Brandon in 2021.

This year, Manitoba is phasing in lead monitoring programs in Dauphin, Flin Flon, Morden, Portage la Prairie, The Pas and Thompson.

These programs are currently at different stages of testing. Results will be made available online on the cities’ or towns’ respective websites.

On Tuesday, the City of Portage la Prairie tweeted that it is looking for volunteers to test their drinking water for lead. Those who would like to have their home sampled should call 204-239-8346 before May 31 to sign up.

- With files from CTV’s Danton Unger.

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