Following school water testing for lead in 2024, the Government of Yukon has completed upgrades and improvements to water fixtures in schools across the territory. Over the spring and summer months, fixtures were mitigated, replaced and retested. This work is now complete and the plans to move into a long-term monitoring program have been developed.
In June 2025, the Department of Education received direction from the Yukon Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board directing the department to put additional measures in place to limit exposure to lead. In response, permanent signage was placed at sinks in washrooms, science rooms and in some classrooms.
The new signs are part of a long-term, precautionary approach to keep lead exposure as low as reasonably achievable. This will result in a far lower exposure than the maximum allowable concentration (MAC) for lead in Health Canada’s Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.
In any Yukon school, the best places to get drinking water is from school:
- water fountains;
- water bottle filling stations; and
- sinks located in home economics rooms or kitchen spaces.
Water samples from these fixtures, across all Yukon schools, show lead levels that are below the MAC for lead in the Canadian guidelines.
As stated in March 2025, water in all Yukon schools has been extensively tested and retested. The Government of Yukon remains confident that students and staff are not being exposed to lead levels that would be considered a health risk.
The Government of Yukon’s long-term monitoring program will follow established protocols and best practices for regularly testing school drinking water to ensure it meets Canadian guidelines.
-
Between 2018–2020 the Government of Yukon completed testing for lead in water samples from fixtures in all Yukon schools. At that time, drinking water fixtures with lead levels that exceeded the federal guidelines were mitigated, replaced or removed.
-
School drinking water was collected and tested for lead from October to December 2024. The samples were tested as they were collected.
-
The current water testing and remediation plan for schools was reviewed and approved by the Yukon’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and Environmental Health Services.
-
Sources of lead in drinking water can include lead pipes, faucets and plumbing fixtures. Welding solder and pipe fittings from before 1986 may also be sources of lead.
-
Where the Government of Yukon is waiting on retesting results, fixtures will remain turned off or otherwise isolated temporarily.
-
The 2025 retesting results will be added to the fixture-by-fixture results document on Yukon.ca following careful, interdepartmental review.
Zara Soukoroff
Communications, Education
867-332-6481
[email protected]
Antoine Goulet
Communications, Highways and Public Works
867-334-5517
[email protected]
Nigel Allan
Communications, Health and Social Services
867-332-9576
[email protected]