Water quality update - Aug. 17

Water restrictions in the Campus Childcare Centre have been lifted today.

Staff are removing old signage from this building and replacing it with new signage to indicate the change in status. They will also be relocating the bottled water supplies to other locations that are still on a bottled water supply.

In testing last week, slightly elevated levels of lead were found in the stagnant water taken from the first drinking water source in the building. The other samples taken from the same source showed levels that are either below the guidelines or not detectable. Testing at the mid and far faucets showed no detectable lead.

Facilities Management conducted an investigation of the plumbing system throughout the building and performed additional maintenance and remediation such as checking strainers for any sediment build up and replacing a supply line to a kitchen sink to reduce connections from two to one. Testing after this work showed the water quality was within Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines. Memorial is now developing a protocol for all on-campus buildings to ensure regular, systematic water quality testing.

In addition to the work outlined above, Facilities Management is in the process of installing a chilled and filtered water station with a filter capable of removing lead in the Childcare Centre. Filters, capable of removing lead, will also be installed on kitchen sinks on both floors.

As information on the status of other buildings is available, it will be shared with the university community via Newsline and mun.ca.