A W5 investigation found asbestos fibres in Regina and Winnipeg water, prompting health concerns for some..The 22-minute report “Something in the Water” aired Saturday. Its first interviewee was Julian Branch, a concerned Regina resident who runs the Twitter account “Asbestos in Water”..“This neighbourhood is the worst in the city for asbestos cement water pipe breaks, snapping like twigs and what happens when pipes break? The asbestos goes into the water,” Branch told W5 of the Whitmore Park and Hillsdale neighbourhood..“I am absolutely concerned about the harm that these pipes may pose to the health of thousands of people.”.Dr. Irving Selikoff discovered in the 1960s that asbestos caused cancer, though the asbestos industry knew previously, according to W5. Arthur Frank, physician and professor of Public Health at Drexel University, told the program ingesting asbestos may also be unhealthy..“We are constantly getting more and more evidence, some of it going back 50 years, but more and more evidence that it can cause gastrointestinal tract cancers,” Frank told W5..Frank narrated a short slide show of asbestos and cancer that showed asbestos fibres in a cancerous colon, a cancerous esophagus, and even the liver of a stillborn baby. He said a single day of exposure to a carcinogen can cause the disease to develop, so the goal should be as little exposure as possible..Health Canada acknowledges the problems with breathing asbestos, but not from drinking it. The agency acknowledges that asbestos cement pipes, commonly used from the 1940s to 1960s, and as late as the 1970s, can release fibres..“Standard water treatment can effectively remove these asbestos fibres from drinking water supplies..“Asbestos fibres may also be released from asbestos-cement pipes that carry drinking water from the treatment plant into your home,” the site says..“Health Canada and the World Health Organization have concluded that there is no consistent, convincing evidence that asbestos ingested through water is harmful to your health. If you drink water containing asbestos fibres, you eliminate the fibres, mostly through feces. For this reason, Health Canada has not established drinking water guidelines for asbestos.”.W5 reached out to over 100 Canadian municipalities and found 85 communities still had asbestos cement pipes. Regina has 531 kilometres of such piping, representing 48% of the length of its mains, though some of it has been re-lined on the interior. Winnipeg has 721 kilometres, representing 25% of its network..Winnipeg lawyer Rana Bokhari ran for mayor in 2022 and is writing a book on asbestos in water, something her city hasn’t tested for since the 1990s..“Asbestos has a 40-year latency period, so people who are drinking it now, it will affect them 40 years from now. So why would we not just do the testing?” Bokhari said..W5 took samples of water from six neighbourhoods in Winnipeg and found 60,000 asbestos fibres per litre..“To say it's alarming is kind of an understatement,” Bokhari said..W5 also tested Regina water after a water main break and found 370,000 fibres per litre. Branch choked back tears at the news..“I can't speak on behalf of all of Regina residents, but I'm personally, I'm really, really sorry to hear that. It's exactly what I wanted to prevent all these years…It's infuriating.”.The City of Regina tested multiple samples for asbestos in 2022, 2021, and 2020, and one in each of the previous four years, but never found any..W5 interviewed Kurtis Doney, Director Water, Waste & Environment at City of Regina. Doney said the city had never found asbestos during their water testing and Health Canada said it was not a concern. .“We have about 530 kilometres of asbestos cement water mains. So, the City of Regina currently replaces about 10 kilometres per year,” said Doney. .The interviewer pointed out it would take 50 years before all the asbestos cement pipes might be replaced..The US Environmental Protection Agency set a limit of 7 million asbestos fibres per litre of water. In the 1980s, water in Woodstock, New York was beyond that threshold. Tara Sullivan founded Asbestos Free Woodstock in 1989 and told W5, “If I were Regina resident, I would be going ballistic right now.”.Asked what she would tell Regina city officials, Sullivan said, “You got to do better. You got to find out what's going on because your people should not be drinking this water.”
