Public Health and Lead Sampling Protocols for Drinking Water: A Critical Review - Global Drinking Water Management and Conservation - page 206

Chapter 10
Public Health and Lead Sampling
Protocols for Drinking Water: A Critical
Review

10.1 Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to review critically lead sampling protocols for
drinking water from the point of view of public health. There are several lead
sampling protocols that can be used. In the US, the EPA requires that a 1 L sample
be taken after drinking water has been stagnant in the drinking water pipe for at
least 6 h in a house or any other location from which drinking water is drawn; we
refer to this as a period of 6 h stagnation. In Europe, members of the European
Union are guided by the Drinking Water Directive (DWD), which does not spell out
the sampling protocol, but in practice EU countries rely on a 1999 major report
called

by
authors Van den Hoven et al. ( 1999 ). This was published as a European Com-
mission Report No. 19087 in 1999. In this chapter, we refer to this major report
simply as the

“ Developing a new protocol for the monitoring of lead in drinking water ”

”
In Canada there appear to be two approaches. The Federal Government proposed
a set of guidelines for discussion in 2007. After a review and comment period, the
Canadian Federal Government released a newly revised set of Guidelines that
accommodates the fact that Ontario has adopted its own set of regulations gov-
erning lead sampling which are closer to the practice of the European Union. In
Australia, the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) are not legally
binding (National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 2004a ).
Samples used to test for lead are taken outside the consumer ' s property from a
service pipeline by water authorities, and are supposed to be carried out on a
monthly basis. According to the ADWG, sampling at the consumer

“ EU Report.

s tap can take
place when special cases of leaching of metal and other corrosivity-related issues
are suspected (NHMRC 2004b ). However, no common standard sampling protocol
is de

'

ned in the ADWG.
This chapter reviews the scienti

c evidence that forms the basis for the sampling
protocols used by the USEPA and the European Union. In our opinion, serious