RCMP employee blows whistle on lead contamination risk from firing range

[shockedcanadian]

The National back stabbers and serial human right abusers are at it again. No wonder our allies don't trust us...

RCMP employee blows whistle on lead contamination risk from firing range

A civilian RCMP employee in Winnipeg says the police agency mishandled the issue of lead contamination from its indoor firing range and kept her in the dark about it.

Reports obtained by CBC News reveal the RCMP in Manitoba knew about potential problems with lead exposure from its firing range in the basement of "D" Division headquarters on Winnipeg's Portage Avenue as early as 2000.

The range continued to be used until March 2016.


While the RCMP acknowledge the history of potential lead problems, the force's external safety reports have always found the firing range to be safe.

But experts say lead can migrate from a firing range to other parts of the building, and RCMP admit it was not until 2013 that they realized employees were accessing files in a room which was adjacent to the range.


"They knew it was dangerous, they didn't tell anyone," said Bonnie Muth, an administrative worker who regularly accessed files from the room since 1997.



"I didn't find out until August of 2015, when they said the files and boxes were contaminated with lead."

Levels 21 times what U.S. Navy considers safe


Two years earlier, in 2013, RCMP asked Muth to box her files in the room because the firing range was about to undergo maintenance.



"I didn't think much of it. They had me put on a white painter's suit, a little drywall mask, and gave me rubber gloves. I just figured because it was so dirty in there, and it was really dirty in there by then — that it was just because of all the dust," Muth said. "You could write your name in it."



She fears the dust that covered the room and her filing cabinets over the years was contaminated with lead from the firing range and may have affected her health.

According to the World Health Organization, exposure to lead can cause "long-term harm in adults, including increased risk of high blood pressure and kidney damage." In young children, it can impair neurological development.

 

[Fenton Lum]

That's nothing, we poison drinking water for profit.

 

[Ringel05]

The National back stabbers and serial human right abusers are at it again. No wonder our allies don't trust us...

RCMP employee blows whistle on lead contamination risk from firing range

A civilian RCMP employee in Winnipeg says the police agency mishandled the issue of lead contamination from its indoor firing range and kept her in the dark about it.

Reports obtained by CBC News reveal the RCMP in Manitoba knew about potential problems with lead exposure from its firing range in the basement of "D" Division headquarters on Winnipeg's Portage Avenue as early as 2000.

The range continued to be used until March 2016.


While the RCMP acknowledge the history of potential lead problems, the force's external safety reports have always found the firing range to be safe.

But experts say lead can migrate from a firing range to other parts of the building, and RCMP admit it was not until 2013 that they realized employees were accessing files in a room which was adjacent to the range.


"They knew it was dangerous, they didn't tell anyone," said Bonnie Muth, an administrative worker who regularly accessed files from the room since 1997.



"I didn't find out until August of 2015, when they said the files and boxes were contaminated with lead."

Levels 21 times what U.S. Navy considers safe


Two years earlier, in 2013, RCMP asked Muth to box her files in the room because the firing range was about to undergo maintenance.



"I didn't think much of it. They had me put on a white painter's suit, a little drywall mask, and gave me rubber gloves. I just figured because it was so dirty in there, and it was really dirty in there by then — that it was just because of all the dust," Muth said. "You could write your name in it."



She fears the dust that covered the room and her filing cabinets over the years was contaminated with lead from the firing range and may have affected her health.

According to the World Health Organization, exposure to lead can cause "long-term harm in adults, including increased risk of high blood pressure and kidney damage." In young children, it can impair neurological development.

Interesting (but not surprising) that the WHO dramatically emphasizes the dangers of lead contamination but offers not one scientific study showing what the contamination threshold is per type of contamination........
Kinda like when environmentalists and parents discovered pressure treated wood was treated with arsenic and freaked out so badly the industry stopped using arsenic. Of course those who pointed out the fact that a kid would have to eat an entire deck made of pressure treated wood were drowned out in the mass hysteria.

Now let's look at another potential problem with this incident. Not many people use unjacketed rounds these days nor have they for nearly a century so it's more likely that the rounds fired in the basement were copper jacketed severely limiting the amount of potential lead dust in the air and I suspect most of the "dust" was/is residue from the propellant powder and not from lead.

So we have an employee who is either an environmental sensationalist, a clueless Millennial or is looking for some issue to sue and make money over.

 

[Ringel05]

Oh and I'm waiting for the first clueless moron to show up and accuse me of claiming lead is not poisonous or dangerous. That'll be fun.....