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City of Surrey to remove lead from four pool houses this year

This comes after lead abatement at three Surrey pools in 2017
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This year the City of Surrey is conducting lead abatement at several pool houses, such as the one at Bear Creek (pictured). (Photo: surrey.ca)

Surrey City Hall says it will be removing lead-based finishes from four pool houses this year.

The swimming pools don’t contain lead paint, according to the City of Surrey, but tests have found lead-based finishes in various areas of several pool houses.

Affected areas include the walls on the exterior of the buildings, in showers and changing areas, as well as metal door frames and doors at Royal Kwantlen, Bear Creek, Port Kells and Greenaway pools.

Wood soffits (the underside of archs or overhanging eaves) with lead-based finished are set to be removed from Greenaway, Royal Kwantlen and Port Kells pools, as are painted plywood coverings from the lifeguard office at Bear Creek pool.

According to the city’s Request for Proposals, abatement will be conducted using “a combination of abrasive blasting, hand grinding and hand demolition” and the work area “will include a full polyethylene enclosure with a three stage decontamination chamber at the entrance.”

In an emailed statement, the City of Surrey stated its facilities division is “always proactive in managing risk and creating a safe environment.”

“Our outdoor pools were built in the early 1960’s and lead was used in the paint which has been confirmed by testing conducted by our environmental consultant,” the statement reads. “We have requested funding for lead removal over the past few budget cycles however, our lead abatement program got a jump start when facilities was successful in obtaining Canada 150 infrastructure funding to complete the lead abatement in three outdoor pools, Unwin, Hjorth Road and Holly last year. We used our base funding to complete the lead abatement at Sunnyside outdoor pool. Facilities have secured funding to complete the lead abatement for all the remaining pools, in 2018. The lead abatement work should take about three to four weeks for each pool site.”

The city notes the work is being done in accordance and in consultation with WorkSafe BC and its internal Occupational Health and Safety Department.

“The paint of the outdoor pools is inspected regularly to ensure there is no chipping or peeling,” according to the statement. “Having the lead abatement done will mitigate all risk and minimize our regular paint chipping or peeling monitoring requirements. The lead abatement program is a proactive initiative of facilities and there has been no incident or risk to date that have surfaced.”



amy.reid@surreynowleader.com

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