Episode 3: 'Tough to Swallow' - Asbestos in drinking water!

Asbestos has been identified in drinking water. 

Thousands of kilometres of old asbestos cement water pipes around the world are failing with potential asbestos contamination entering into our water system. What are the Health risks?

We interview Julian Branch from 'Prevent Cancer Now' in Regina, Canada, who talks about the toxic legacy present around the world.

The ‘Asbestos Still Kills Podcast ® (A.S.K.)' Team provide another exciting Podcast which will not leave viewers disappointed.

Episode Links:

'Prevent Cancer Now' - Canada:

https://preventcancernow.ca/taking-action/asbestos/

Christchurch water report 2022:

https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/call-for-pipe-upgrades-after-asbestos-found-in-christchurch-drinking-water

Asbestos Contamination to water pipes in Temuka, New Zealand:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/100926581/health-officials-give-thumbs-up-for-temuka-asbestos-in-water-response

Presenters:

Robert McAllister - FAMANZ Director

Dr. Terri-Ann Berry - Environmental Innovation Centre (EIC); Associate Professor, AUT, School of Future Environments

Jason Milner - Asbestos Management Consultants Ltd (AMC)

Website: www.asbestosstillkills.com

Email: asbestosstillkills@gmail.com

The Asbestos Still Kills Podcast ® is Sponsored by:

Asbestos Management Consultants Ltd - Expertise you can trust

https://asbestosmanagementconsultants...

The Environmental Innovation Centre

https://www.environmental-innovation.nz/

For information on asbestos-related diseases or to contact the Mesothelioma Support and Asbestos Awareness Trust please go to:

https://www.msaatrust.org.nz/

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Transcript

Welcome to ASK Podcast 2026

Speaker 5 0:01

Asbestos still kills.

Speaker 1 0:16

Drinking asbestos can deliver any one of a number of gastrointestinal cancers. So let's look at uh New Zealand. We've got about uh 7,000 kilometers of asbestos cement pipe. Europe is full of them. Italy has a hundred thousand kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe. About 30,000 kilometers in the UK. They're older than Canada, so they're breaking more frequently. They set the maximum contaminant level at 7 million fibers per liter. And it says right in those fact sheets that they set that level to quote protect against cancer. But the actual water test says the fiber count was 1.3 billion fibers per liter. They warned young children not to drink the water. Is because the scientists in Kenya said that they're causing cancer, gastrointestinal cancer. And the uh studies kept ongoing and they determined that yes, indeed, it was harmful to drink asbestos from old water pipes. This is the toxic legacy that's been left behind.

Welcome, Hosts, And 2026 Goals

Speaker 5 1:36

For listening to the asbestos still kills podcast, please see the disclaimer on the website www.asbestos stillkills.com. Thank you. Episode three. Tough to swallow. Asbestos in water with Julian Branch from Prevent Cancer Now in Regina, Canada. Welcome back to the asbestos still kills podcast. I am Jason Milner. I'm Terry Annberry. It's the first podcast of the year, 2026, and we've got a great topic lined up for you today. As we will be discussing the implications of asbestos containing water pipes. So did everyone have a nice Christmas, New Year break? Rob?

Speaker 3 2:51

Yeah, pretty good for me. Nice weather. Couldn't mind at all. We had a few rain rainy days, but that was good as a bit of a break, because we've had a bit of a heat wave for one of what I can say during this side of the world. So uh it appears that it's been a bit cold the other side. So yeah, no, it's been really good, restful. Jennianne?

Speaker 6 3:09

Yeah, same here. I mean, look, I'll never get over the joy of being able to swim in the sea on Christmas Day. It's something that we never did in the UK, and it's it's quite fantastic. So yeah, very restful too, and yeah, lovely to have time family time.

Speaker 1 3:21

What about yourself, Julian? Have a nice Christmas, Julian. Not quite as warm as you folks. Uh a bit more snow here. We were hovering around minus 20 for Christmas, but uh it was brilliant. We had lots of family over. It was a fabulous getaway.

Speaker 5 3:35

Fantastic. So let's start with a team question. What's one thing that you like to achieve from our podcast for 2026? Rob.

Speaker 3 3:48

Well, I'll kick off really. I mean, we've seen a big growth in our podcast though since since starting. So I'd love to see in 2026 it grow even further so we can raise more awareness across all sectors. I mean, often it can be a dry subject for some. I mean, we love it as a asbestos, that's what we do. But uh, I do appreciate that others, there's a lot of things going on in life. So giving people an opportunity to have a a way of actually researching subjects to do with asbestos, all stuff that's relevant to different people, and raise awareness really worldwide would be what I'd like to see this year.

Speaker 6 4:28

Yeah, uh for me, I'd like to really focus on outreach. Um, so as you guys know, I'm um chair of the Mesothelioma Support and Asbestos Awareness Trust, which is New Zealand's only charity that's dedicated to um both raising awareness but also reaching out and supporting our community that are suffering from asbestos-related disease. And so what we do as part of this is we run morning tea events all over the country where we bring together people who have an asbestos-related disease along with their families and their carers, and we basically allow connection. And the nicest thing is actually seeing them talk to each other because all of a sudden you've got a kindred spirit who really gets what you're going through. So for us, it's super important to build those networks. And up until recently, um, we usually run sort of three or four a year, and we tend to get around 10 people at each event. And what I'd really love to see is we're going to very bravely go for eight this year, which is which is quite a lot. Um, it would be great to see more than 10 people at each of those events. Um again, a little bit of a of a double-edged sword because essentially the more people we see means there are more people suffering. But we know that about 100 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma um every year in New Zealand. So we know there are more people out there that we're not managing to connect with, and we just want to make sure that we're there so that if they need somebody else to talk to, they need to reach out, they just want support, um, they know we're there and we're able to give that. So for me, um, I'd love to be able to do a bit more outreach to our community and again continue, as Rob said, raising awareness generally.

Speaker 5 5:57

Fantastic. Yeah, from myself, I would like to this podcast to reach more people around the world. It's already reaching uh Asia, Europe, uh also uh in America as well, North America, South America, not just Australia and New Zealand. So it'd be great to warn the world about the dangers of asbestos, which is great that we've got Julian from Canada on today for the podcast.

Speaker 1 6:29

And I'd just jump in and uh and agree with Terry Ann and Rob and say that it's awareness for me. I've been trying to raise awareness of this issue since 2012 when I first discovered it. So the more people that can learn about uh asbestos cement water pipes and ingested asbestos, the better off we'll all be.

Speaker 2 6:46

Because only when you're informed can you make the right decisions. Absolutely.

Speaker 6 6:52

Yeah, well said, Julian. And so with that in mind, on to our topic of the day. Really excited to hear more. But first, I'm very happy to introduce to you our special guest, Julian Branch. Julian joins us from Regina in Canada. So good morning, Julian, and welcome to our podcast.

Speaker 1 7:07

Good day to all of you, and it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 6 7:11

Yeah, fantastic. So excited. We've had lots of conversations about this topic. So Julian is a former journalist who also sits on the board of Prevent Cancer Now. Prevent Cancer Now is a charitable organization in Canada, and what they do is they focus really on um primary cancer prevention more than anything else. So, what they're trying to do is rather than look into expensive cures, how do we prevent it in the first place? And they do this using education as one of the measures. Um, so we'd love to know a little bit more about your charity work. How did it start and how are you involved? Tell us more.

Meet Julian Branch And Prevent Cancer Now

Speaker 1 7:45

Sure, I'd be happy to. Uh Prevent Cancer Now came about uh in 2004 when a group of like-minded individuals were talking on the telephone about the increase in cancer in Canada, and they wanted to do something about that. So in 2007, after several meetings, uh Prevent Cancer Now was born. And Terry Ann, just like you said, what we do is it's it's volunteers, and uh we try and educate people about uh asbestos and and other uh contaminants, and we talk about I mean, the basic premise behind Prevent Cancer Now is let's stop cancer before it starts. Don't wait until we've got cancer. Let's figure out smoking is bad, drinking in excess is bad, pesticides are bad, asbestos in your water pipes are bad. So we talk to people about that, we advocate, we try and make uh changes in regulations where there are none in government, and that's what we're trying to do in this area. Uh you mentioned I'm a journalist. Uh after 25 years in journalism, a successful rewarding career in journalism, I went to what people call the dark side. I went to do strategic communications for politicians. I spent 10 years doing that. I was a director of communications for three provincial premiers here in Canada. Then I went into the post-secondary sector. That's where I discovered this. And I think my communications background, along with my journalism background, give me a really unique perspective on this. Because when I first uh found out about this and started talking to those politicians I used to work for, I started getting a lot of baffle gap. And uh I think it's it's very it's a very important part of the story that uh that isn't being told. And uh so Prevent Cancer Now, we're we're working to uh raise awareness on this issue. I I discovered it in 2012. I uh came across Prevent Cancer Now about three and a half years ago and uh started uh communicating with them, and they were fascinated. Now I'm just a curious old journalist, but the rest of the people who sit on that board are medical doctors, they're scientists, they're PhDs, they're very clever people, and they were fascinated. They'd never heard about this issue. They were fascinated. I was elected to the board three and a half years ago, and I'm I'm very pleased to say that uh in those past three and a half years we've put a lot of information on the website. We uh we do podcasts like this, we do speaking engagements, we meet with people to talk about this because we've got to get the word out there.

Speaker 5 10:11

So I know that prevent cancer now is a strong focus on research uh with the archives of scientific studies on a number number of uh cancer-related topics, but today you are here to talk about one in particular, which is the potential harm caused by the use of asbestos-based water pipes, cement water pipes. So can you provide us with some uh background on this, please, Julian?

How The U.S. Discovered And Regulated Asbestos In Water

Speaker 1 10:38

Sure, I'd be pleased to. Uh the genesis of this issue is really in the United States of America. In 1960, well, in the late 60s, something peculiar was happening in the greatest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes in Canada and the United States. And tests were done by the fledgling EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and they discovered large amounts of asbestos fibers in the water of Lake Superior. How large? They warned young children not to drink the water. The case went to court because it was a mining company, reserve mining company, that had been dumping its tailings into Lake Superior, creating the asbestos fibers. After a two-year court case, they were ordered to stop doing that. And uh a 20-year study was undertaken by the EPA. Two decades of studies by the EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services. And in 1992, the United States of America regulated asbestos in water because during that time they had discovered there were close to 600,000 miles of asbestos cement water pipes that had been installed in America. They knew they had to do something. They started back in the early 70s by looking at how much asbestos was in American water. There was already quite a bit. Then they looked at the pipes and was it harmful to drink asbestos? And it was determined very early on in those investigations that ingested asbestos passes through the gastrointestinal tract. That is the magic marker. And they determined that in the 1980s. And the uh studies kept ongoing and they determined that yes, indeed, it was harmful to drink asbestos from old water pipes. So in 1992, the United States Environmental Protection Agency regulated asbestos in water. You look at 92 fact sheets from the EPA, they set the maximum contaminant level at 7 million fibers per liter. And it says right in those fact sheets that they set that level to, quote, protect against cancer. 1995 fact sheets from the EPA say the long-term health effects from drinking asbestos from old water pipes is lung disease and cancer. Now it gets a little confusing because if you look at the the uh EPA website today, the only health impact from drinking asbestos is an increased risk of benign intestinal polyps. How and when did drinking asbestos stop causing cancer in America? And uh that's that's the genesis of this issue. It's the United States of America that studied it for 20 years and has regulated since 1992. Wow.

Speaker 6 13:36

Yeah, and I I'd just like to say that I I when you told me this story, I had to go and have a little look because I I was kind of blown away by it because when I first started researching into asbestos, this was back in the sort of early 2000s, I remember reading very clearly that there was evidence that it could cause harm by inhalation and ingestion. Um but obviously the primary pathway was inhalation. And I started to look at what the risks were and I started to look at risk pathways. And it was almost like the discussion around ingestion disappeared a little bit. It went very, very quiet. Um, but looking at the research archives at the moment, I can see that there, again, there's a there's a there's a few groups who are doing some really interesting work. And it does appear that, you know, demonstrating that there is asbestos fibers in the network is is quite clear. The evidence is relatively clear. And I don't think anyone's contesting that that it's ending up in the water. It's that next leap of is it causing harm? But from some of the studies that I've looked at, um, there's there's definite strong evidence, particularly in things like um the mice studies that they're looking at, where they're saying that you know, asbestos actually seems to migrate to the liver when it's been ingested from these mouse studies. And so there's definitely information out there, but interesting that not many people are talking about it. And I'd love to know why you think that might be.

Speaker 1 14:58

Well, I mean, when people ask me why this isn't being uh more taken more seriously and why something isn't being done, especially with the asbestos cement water pipes, look at the cost of replacing those pipes. It's in the billions of dollars. And something I find very interesting coming from Canada. I don't know if you know about the history of asbestos in Canada, but the the record shows that uh Canada once produced 40% of the world's chrysotile asbestos, and 95% of that was exported. So I can understand our country like yours does not regulate asbestos in water. I can understand why Canada is reluctant to acknowledge that the material that we mined, 40% of the world's chrysotile asbestos, and shipped around the world. I can't imagine picking up the phone now and saying, hello, Italy, hello, France, hello, UK, that that product we sold you decades ago might be a bit of a problem. But that is uh I'll just highlight one thing from the United States and the EPA. The rationale for the EPA is on their website, it's buried in their archives, but it's actually very telling. We know about the inhalation of asbestos, it's a group one carcinogen. I arc everybody calls asbestos a group one carcinogen to inhale. The rationale for regulating asbestos in water is very simple. If you're an asbestos miner and you breathe in asbestos fibers, the first thing you will do is clear your throat because the asbestos irritates your throat. What did you just do? You just ingested asbestos. Doesn't matter if it comes from a pipe or from you clearing your throat.

Speaker 2 16:46

Swallowing asbestos is swallowing asbestos.

Speaker 5 16:52

I know some of the old miners used to have used to have milk and used to drink just to dry throats and to have milk just to clear the throats, and yeah, they'd be washing down any any as any asbestos. So when did you stop mining? It was about 2015.

Speaker 1 17:07

Oh gosh, no, we we banned it in 2018. We haven't mined it for uh long, long before then, but the uh the byproduct is still there. There's a story in Canadian media today about a community in British Columbia that had mountains, and I'm not just talking small hills, I'm talking mountains of asbestos fibers from their mines. And they're they're still sitting there, they're still blowing in the wind. It's it's disgraceful. I mean, this is the toxic legacy that's been left behind.

Speaker 3 17:35

I mean, Julian, when picking up from that background, yeah, I'd like to really get a sense of scalp for people listening. I mean, you've done a really good job initially outlining that. But like so, if we think here in New Zealand, we just spend a lot of time dealing with asbestos in buildings, and you would see that the regulator does a lot of that. But many people just don't realize asbestos cement was also very common material for drinking water pipes um for decades here as well. Um, I mean, on that basis, can you talk us through a little bit more in related to your hometown? Are the asbestos pipes still in use and significant part of the water network, or are they becoming more of an exception and being removed?

Speaker 1 18:18

Unfortunately, we have close to 600 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe in my hometown. That makes up about 50% of the water distribution pipes in Regina, Saskatchewan. It's it's extraordinarily high. And I'll I'll say that in Christchurch, it's about the same. It just under 50% of the water distribution pipes are made of asbestos cement. But uh we uh we are doing two things, very slowly replacing the pipes. It will take up to 60 years to replace those pipes, 6-0. And we are relining the pipes with an epoxy resin. That seems to be a popular method now. But quite frankly, that's a stopgap band-aid measure because the pipes that we have here in Regina are impacted by the soil. We have a clay soil that expac uh expands and contracts with the moisture or lack thereof, and it breaks the pipes. So if you put a liner in that pipe, even the city of Regina studies show that we don't know if that liner will debond when the pipe breaks again. Well, of course it will. If the pipe disintegrates, the the liner will too. So that's just a a temporary measure. They need to be replaced, and it's very, very expensive to do that.

Evidence, EPA Limits, And The Cancer Debate

Speaker 3 19:36

So prevent cancer was obviously now putting together and pulled together a national inventory uh that really brings the visual uh aspect back to it for people to want to see. For some people hearing this uh for the first time today, potentially, um, what does that data tell us about just how widespread the cement uh in water pipes still is and still is on that basis?

Speaker 1 20:02

In Canada, let me let me just give you a bit of background because in 2021, our federal government announced it was doing its first ever national inventory of all infrastructure across Canada, bridge, road bridges, roads, uh water pipes, sewage pipes. So I wrote a letter to the then federal minister responsible asking him, well, surely you're going to look at asbestos cement water pipes as well. A couple of weeks later, I got a response from his office that said, no, we weren't going to do that. But Mr. Branch, if you'd like to do that, we advise you, we advise you that you'd be free to do that. Well, I thought, I'm a private citizen. How on earth would I do a national inventory of asbestos cement water pipes? So I got together with my friends at Prevent Cancer Now and we filed what's called a parliamentary petition. And we called on the federal government to include the pipes and include a plan to replace the pipes.

Speaker 4 20:56

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Global Picture: Canada, UK, Europe, Africa, Australia

Speaker 1 22:42

To my surprise, this federal government agreed to do that. And on June 24th of this year, they uh came up with a Statistics Canada report and an infrastructure Canada report, and it shows we have 14,000 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe in Canada. And that is the first time that's ever been known. It was patchwork piecemeal. Before then, we knew of a couple of communities here because municipalities are loath to talk about this, as you can imagine. They uh they don't want to talk about this a great deal. So the inventory that uh we were able to pull together through Statistics Canada and is now on the Prevent Cancer Now website, by the way. You can just go there and find out if your community in Canada has asbestos cement water pipes, because that's the very first and fundamental question that you have to ask. Do I have these pipes? Then what do I need to do? Do I get a water filter? Do I get bottled water? How can I get my pipes replaced? So that was a uh a very important first step. And uh, if you want me, I can continue on around the world and and we can take a tour around the world and and talk about that. So 14,000 kilometers here in Canada. Uh the US EPA estimates there are over 630,000 miles of asbestos cement water pipe in Canada or in the United States. Uh they're throughout UK, about 30,000 kilometers in the UK. They're older than Canada, so they're breaking more frequently. Uh Europe is full of them. Italy has 100,000 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe. The inventor of the asbestos cement pipe process was an Italian. So unfortunately for them, they've got a lot of this stuff. Uh the Netherlands, Africa, South Africa has so much asbestos cement water pipe that the people there aren't worried about cancer. They're worried about drinking water. They're worried about water. Their water is going dry. Just Google South Africa's asbestos cement pipes, you'll come up with a story a day. Kenya. Kenya is very interesting. Just in September, Kenya announced it's prioritizing the replacement of old asbestos cement water pipes because they're failing so often. And they said the reason they're doing that is because the scientists in Kenya said that they're causing cancer. Gastrointestinal cancer. There are some scientists who know what they're talking about. Australia, 40,000 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe, James Hardy and Sons, I think the same fellow that uh put all yours in place.

Speaker 3 25:13

Yes, I suppose on that basis, I mean, pretty scary facts there that you've raised. Um and and looking at a population basis, you know, you're looking at very similar sort of positions I'm seeing across those countries. Um on that basis. But from an international perspective, you know, what in your view could be done here, like you've done in Canada, do you think um the inclusion of a national register andor governance of that should proceed forwards i in New Zealand?

Speaker 1 25:47

Absolutely. Uh the the number one thing that has to happen is federal regulation. I call it the circular conundrum, because our federal government, like yours, says, well, the World Health Organization says there's no consistent, convincing evidence that ingested asbestos is harmful, therefore we won't regulate it. Well, when you look at that statement, and that's exactly what it says on the World Health Organization website, there's no consistent, convincing evidence that ingested asbestos is harmful. That's a bar that's almost impossible to reach. You cannot ever show that there's no consistent convincing evidence. There's no consistent convincing evidence that smoking tobacco causes cancer. You know, for that matter. But they the number one thing that has to change is federal regulation. Without that, the provincial governments, your state governments, the municipalities, they all look back to the federal government and say, well, we don't even test for asbestos in water because there's no regulation. And without that, no testing, no asbestos, no problem. So it has to change at the top. It has to start at the top. And and just let me give you uh a quick snapshot of New Zealand, if I if I may, because I've looked at this a bit. Um two very important things happened in New Zealand. The the first one was 2017, I believe it's called Tamuka. Um the the pipes were so clogged with asbestos, there are pictures in reports of a fibrous white paste caught in the uh screens of kitchen faucets and uh and garden hoses. It's a thick, white, grayish sludge in these filters. Now keep in mind that asbestos is measured using transmission electron microscopy. They they use microscopes. This is microscopic fibers. So when it's clogging up one of your filters like that, that's going to be in the billions. And the reason I say not the million fibers per liter, as is the standard in the United States, seven million fibers, that's going to be in the billions because there's a uh a city in Brockway, Pennsylvania, in 2024 that had the exact same picture on Facebook of a kitchen faucet with a gray sludge in it. Now, the media story connected to that picture says that the levels were 11 million fibers per liter. But the actual water test says the fiber count was 1.3 billion fibers per liter. And that makes more sense. If you're looking at a gray sludge in your filter, it's going to be in the billions. So let's look at uh New Zealand. We've got about uh 7,000 kilometers of asbestos cement pipe. Christchurch. Soft water is deteriorating the pipes from the inside. It's eating out the pipe from the inside. The fibers are going into the water. And earthquakes, I believe, in 2010-2011, did what they call liquefy the soil. So if the soil is liquefied, think of an old asbestos cement water pipe. It's going to be liquefied too. So university researchers at the University of Otago decided to test the water in Christchurch. It was the first time in New Zealand history that a transmission electron microscope had been used to test the water. That is the only way to definitively determine whether or not asbestos is in the water. It's called the EPA 100.1 or EPA 100.2. Those are the two tests that are used. That's what they use to determine. And I just want to read the uh conclusion of that report. Long and short fibers were detected in pipes of all age classes. And those pipes were from the 1930s up to the 1970s. So there is a great deal of asbestos in Christchurch water. There's short fibers and long fibers. And in Temuka, in 2017, a thick white paste was clogging the filters. But the uh the municipal officials assured everybody they'd checked with the state and uh and the federal officials, and there's no consistent convincing evidence that ingested as best as is harmful, you're free to drink the water.

New Zealand Cases: Temuka, Christchurch, Otago Testing

Speaker 6 30:10

I'd like to actually um go back, Julian. Uh this consistent evidence is an is an interesting place to have a little bit of dialogue because as a researcher, one of the things I've found is that the commitment to spend money on asbestos research um is ever decreasing. It used to be quite a high priority uh in the EU, and I've heard now from colleagues in Italy that it is now longer, now no longer a priority. And even though it's one of the most researched topics in the world, if you look at the number of papers, there are a huge number of papers on the topic, it's still very difficult to get research funding. And my theory behind this is around the fact that it's very difficult to actually make that direct link and say, if you get exposed to asbestos, this is how likely you are to develop cancer in however many years. Um, it's not like something where there's a really clear and immediate cause-effect type scenario. And I think that stops people from feeling like they need to do something about it. Um, so your comments about the fact that there's no clear evidence is a really interesting one because, as you say, you might say that about lots of other um lots of other materials that are harmful that there are regulations for. So my thinking here is does this mean that a huge part of this is going to be about making our communities aware of the risks so that they have a voice? Um, I know that with some substances, um, they might not actually be necessarily a high risk, but if if the communities are really unhappy about it and really concerned about it, regulations can be put in place. And I wonder whether or not asbestos is one of those things where A, people are really fearful of it, so they pretend it's not really there, and also there's a whole lot of people who aren't aware of it. So, what could we do as community members? What can we do, A, to raise awareness to other people and also to protect ourselves? And you mentioned about use of bottled water. What are you suggesting at Prevent Cancer Now to actually give people options so that if we are saying, hey, look, this we believe this is an issue, what are those solutions? What are the sorts of things that we can do for our New Zealand community and others around the world that might give them some solutions at this moment?

Speaker 1 32:26

It it uh it comes back to regulation. We we need to get our federal governments to regulate this so they test. And I'll give you the example of lead. Lead in Canadian water is regulated. We know it's a danger. We know it's a it's a health concern. Here in the city of Regina, we have not only 600 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe, we have a lot of lead service connectors running into people's homes. The city of Regina offers free water filters. They help you replace your lead service connector. That's because lead is regulated in Canadian water. Asbestos isn't, so everybody says nope, it's fine to drink the water. That thinking has to change. And that's uh what Prevent Cancer is now is doing, is trying to raise awareness of this to let people. Nobody knows about this. Very few people in the world know about this. And the other thing that asbestos has going in its favor, as you mentioned, Terry, uh, Terrianne, the long latency period. It can take up to 40 years for asbestos cement, uh asbestos-related diseases to take hold. So politicians ignore it. They run on a four-year cycle. Politicians run on a four-year cycle. They just need to get elected every four years, and heaven help them that something bad should happen in those four years. So these pipes, like I say, are out of sight, out of mind. Nobody knows about them, nobody's talking about them. We need to change that and make people aware. When I first when I first raised this with the very first politician I sat down with, it was a local city councilor here in Regina, and I've I've read the uh the research that happened here in Regina, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But uh, she sat down, she looked at the research I had in 2012, and she looked me dead in the eye and she said, Julian, you've got to stop this. You're going to scare people. Well, it's not my intention to scare anyone. It's my intention to raise awareness of this, and you'd think that's what a civic official would want to do, but they always run in the opposite direction. It's nobody's fault that we installed these pipes starting back in the 1920s and 30s. But now that we know what we do about asbestos and the diseases that are attached to it, it's time to do something about it.

Speaker 5 34:42

I know when we've we've talked about asbestos as a group on on the podcast, if asbestos killed you instantly, they'd they'd think it we it would be more of a danger because people take more notice. They don't because of a long latency period. Well, forty years is in the future. We don't have to worry about that. But you should do. So going back to the research, uh Julian, in 2025 researcher Arthur Frank wrote about a growing trend in the literature on uh on related gastrointestinal tract cancers. But some of the water regulators state that there isn't any evidence. Can you tell us about more about what Arthur Frank found?

Why Action Stalls: Costs, Politics, And WHO Language

Speaker 1 35:28

Absolutely. Let me just tell you a bit about Arthur Frank. Uh he's a double doc. He's a medical doctor, he's a PhD. He's been studying this issue of ingested asbestos for over 50 years. I've uh been in constant communication with uh Dr. Frank over the years, and he is seen as one of the leading experts in this area of ingested asbestos. And uh in 2023, I found out about a water main break, a very serious asbestos cement watermane break in Sheffield, England. So I contacted an investigative journalist uh over there, and she ran a series of articles. She got together with uh seven or eight other journalists from Europe, and they ran a series of articles over in the UK and Europe, and they interviewed Dr. Frank extensively. And I just want to read a quote from that uh 2024. It's a story out of Copenhagen, Denmark. And Dr. Frank said, the types of cancer you get from ingestion would be gastrointestinal tract cancers, esophagus, stomach, even small bowel, and then large bowel cancers and kidney cancers. That's from Dr. Arthur Frank, who has studied this issue for 50 years. He is unequivocal. Drinking asbestos can deliver any one of a number of gastrointestinal cancers. And then there's a research coming out of Italy. I mentioned Italy earlier. A lot of asbestos cement water pipe. The inventor of the pipe was an Italian, and uh earthquakes in recent decades in Italy have wreaked havoc on the underground infrastructure. Some of the best research in this area is coming out of Italy. In uh Tuscany, uh, 2016, Dr. Agostino di Ciaola looked at uh stomach, liver, and colon cancer through ingested asbestos. In 2022, Dr. Giovanni Brandi, bile duct cancer in Bologna. Some of the best research is coming from Italy where a lot of the pipes are, where a lot of the pipes are breaking. So there's all sorts of research in this area. There has been for decades. And Arthur Frank will tell you that it's under-researched, it's understudied, it's under-reported, it's been known since the 60s and 70s. And I'll just tell you about one study I came across, and I it's one of the more obscure ones, but I think it's one of the better studies out there, and it's from Norwegian lighthouse keepers. Because after World War II, the coast of Norway was so badly bombed they rebuilt all the old lighthouses along the coast. And guess what the miracle mineral was that they used in the roofing tiles? They used asbestos roofing tiles. So the rain comes down the roofing tile, goes into a bucket, a cistern, and that's where all those Norwegian lighthouse keepers get their drinking water from. The story is good from two different perspectives. The study looked at 726 Norwegian lighthouse keepers over a period of decades. It's a long study, it's not just a quick one because you need to have that latency period. And the conclusion of that study, and you'll see it online, the result is an elevated risk of gastrointestinal cancer in the entire cohort. 726 lighthousekeepers, each one of them had an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal cancer. So that the studies are there. There are all sorts of studies out there. It's just that, well, you know, it's just not convincing enough for the World Health Organization and for Health Canada. Health Canada is currently reviewing our decision. We made that decision not to regulate in 1989. We've reviewed it in 2005, 2013, 2018. We're currently reviewing it again. They've been kicking it down the road for two and a half years before the public participation process. It'll come out and say the same thing, that there's no consistent convincing evidence because it's too expensive to fix. It's horrendous.

Speaker 5 39:35

I wonder how many how many times uh the cancer has been attributed to bad diets rather than cancer.

Speaker 1 39:45

That's a very good question. That is a very good question. And I one of the things I want the government to do is just take an honest look at this and and start doing some more research in this area. I live in Regina, Saskatchewan. 600 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe. In 2003, the federal government, the provincial government, the city, and the University of Regina launched a $34 million research facility at the University of Regina. And uh it doesn't say in the skillfully worded three-page news release back in 2003 exactly what it was doing. It talks about water management, it talks about Regina being a living laboratory. Well, that gave birth to the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Research. And from 2005 to 2012, that center produced ten very specific, very detailed reports on asbestos cement water pipes. And it says, number one, that when the pipes get old, they deteriorate, they break, the fibers do shed or leach into the water. And then they refer to those fibers in the water as a health concern, quote unquote, a health concern. In 2010, one of those studies defines health concern as cancer. There's an increased risk of cancer as a result of those old asbestos cement water pipes. I discovered that in 2012. The research facility quietly shut down in 2013. And the when I when I went to the media, here's the fascinating part. When I went to the politicians first, they didn't do anything, so I took my story of the media. They went to the back to the federal politicians and the provincial politicians, and a big scrum was held. And the the media uh interviewed a couple of the people associated with those studies. And two studies, and one of the uh co-authors of those two studies commented to the media and said, no, there's no evidence that drinking asbestos is harmful, except for his two reports that say it causes cancer. So that's what's going on here. And when I discovered those studies, I read them cover to cover. They're, by the way, those 10 studies, you can find them online, Prevent Cancer Now. I thought it would be a good idea to archive them there. Um when I wrote to the National Research Council, the federal body responsible for those studies, and said, um, wait a second, uh, you've got these 10 studies here that say cancer, but Health Canada says there's no evidence that they cause cancer. And Health Canada wrote back and said, Oh, those studies were uh focused on infrastructure, not health, so they don't count. Well, surely somebody at the National Research Council went across the hall to Health Canada, said, we've got a big problem here. So I wrote to Health, I wrote to NRC and said, What do you know about this? And they said, we have no data on asbestos cement pipes, except the 10 studies that say cancer. So, like I say, it's my background in communications. There, there's a communication strategy being employed here, is what this is, more than anything else. It's bad enough that the pipes, but for heaven's sakes, when we know something about it, let's not fiddle around with words. Let's get something done.

Speaker 42:57

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What Communities Can Do Now

Speaker 6 44:00

There is one thing that that works in our favour. And you mentioned about Italy having such an incredible cohort of amazing asbestos researchers. And I absolutely agree with you. I'm very lucky that I've been partnered with Professor Elena Belusso at the University of Torino. And what they're doing is they're actually using animals to look at the sort of distribution and the impacts of asbestos. And the great thing about animals is they that you can take out some of the variables. So Jason was mentioning about, you know, does, you know, is it easy to separate impacts of bad diet from the impacts of asbestos in terms of gastrointestinal cancers? So the great thing about using animals is that you can actually control their diet and you can control other real big risk factors. So, you know, they don't tend to drink and they don't smoke, as far as we know. So she's actually using horses at the moment and say, well, let's have a look at the impact. And again, these are respiratory studies, but you could do the same thing and look at um sort of testing around the intestinal system to see whether or not there's any evidence there. And surely that sort of evidence would support something like this. But again, the problem we keep going back to is as researchers, because of this latency period, because of the whole, can I use the term NIMTU? Does anybody know what NIMTU is? It means not in my term of office. But because of that effect, it's actually ridiculously difficult to get research funding to look into asbestos because you always come back to the same thing that not enough people are impacted for it to be, I don't know, attractive in some way. I'm not sure what that is. Um, and also because there's not that direct cause and effect. So we end up back with that problem. Um, but interesting and I hope heartening that we know that there are researchers out there doing great things, and actually we should be able to get more information if we can start creating a bit more awareness and maybe getting some funding going in that direction in the future.

Speaker 1 45:59

And and it's interesting that you mentioned that because uh about a year ago I came across uh a group of researchers at King's College in London, England, who were doing research in this area and they wanted to do more testing of asbestos in water. And I was quite hopeful a year ago. And I just looked them up, and they've uh keen young university students, recent grads, formed their own company, but they're not doing it anymore because there's no market for it. There's nobody, nobody regulates asbestos and water except the United States of America. Nobody tests for it, nobody cares. So I was very disheartened to see that. But I am cautiously optimistic that things are changing because, as I've said for years now, this is only going to get worse. These pipes are getting older. They're breaking more and more, more frequently. And I'll just give you an anecdotal uh situation. Five years ago, I set up a Google Alert for asbestos cement water pipe breaks. The first year I didn't get one hit, out of one. Second year, I got a couple. I'm now getting hits on Google Alert on a weekly, if not daily basis from around the world. The pipes are failing. They've reached the end of their useful lives. And here's something interesting. When I first started looking at this, I looked at city documents here in Regina, and the City of Regina water and sewer budget said the average lifespan of an asbestos cement water pipe is 50 years on a good day. They're not lasting that long here in Regina because of our soil, but the average lifespan was regularly thought to be 50 years. In one of those NRC research documents that came out in 2011, it says the average lifespan of an asbestos cement water pipe is 70 years. And we got that information from the Chrysotile Institute of Canada. Well, the Chrysotile Institute of Canada morphed into the International Chrysotile Association. It's the asbestos lobby. The government of Canada was getting its lifespan of the product that the asbestos industry makes from the asbestos industry. And now when you look at the lifespan of asbestos cement water pipes, miraculously, they're a hundred years. The older they get, the longer the lifespan gets.

Speaker 2 48:07

So something, something funny there. Come back to communications again.

Speaker 3 48:13

Yeah, so I mean, on that one, Julian, two parts for me. One is that uh also being an asbestos professional, I'm also a registered building surveyor. Okay, so I understand buildings, products, durability, lifestyle, uh life cycles, etc. And um what I would say is that you know, putting a 50-year lifespan on a pipe, as you say, really varies depending on the soil type activity above, what's going on there, demand of the water pipe, i.e., have we put new services in down the line, the the pipes under greater demand? We could arguably say that all of the um regions that these pipes are in have grown. We've got more houses, more demand on those pipes. So even if you said, hey, the original intention lifespan of this pipe is a hundred years, you could arguably say, well, now we've got twice, three times the capacity requirement for this particular pipe, a lot more a lot more water running for it every day, and that would subsequently impact the life of that particular service. So I think that sometimes that's brushed, brushed under the table, I have to say, from from that experience. But if we sort of come back to the average listener, Julian, we would say that, like, you know, your parents, homeowners, people purchasing these properties fed by these pipes, school communities, etc. What do you really think the right thing actually looks like to do? So is it about routine monitoring that we're saying? Is it about being more open about where these pipes are, which is a good first step because people understand it? Or is it having a clear long-term plan to replace them rather than pretending they just don't exist, which seems to be the current position? Yeah.

Key Studies: Arthur Frank, Italy, Norway Lighthouse Keepers

Speaker 1 50:00

All of the above wrong. And it it starts with replacing the pipes, but when we're waiting for that, because it's going to take a long time. Let me give you an example. Malaysia. Just if you look at if you Google asbestos cement water pipe replacement Malaysia, they have prioritized in the past couple of months the replacement. 40,000 kilometers of asbestos cement water pipe in Malaysia, they're going to get the job done by 2040. 14 years. They're going to do that. 14 years because they prioritized it. This is a matter of prioritize. Kenya, they say it causes cancer, they're getting the pipes replaced. You can do something when it's uh when it's a priority, but we have to uh make it a priority. And in the interim, while we're replacing the pipes, you're absolutely right. We need to have more transparency surrounding where the pipes are, and we need to test for asbestos in water while that's happening. Christchurch should be testing on an annual basis. And here's where it gets a little fuzzy. And uh it's interesting because I found it, I found the answer in that report that's out of the University of Otago. I mentioned the two methods of testing. One is 100.1 EPA method, and one is EPA method 100.2. EPA 100.1 tests for all fiber lengths in asbestos. But the EPA, when they set that regulation, they said the fibers have to be over 10 microns in length. Anything under 10 microns in length, drink up, which is absolutely specious. But 100.2 only tests for fibers that are over 10 microns in length. So when you test, use 100.1. That tests, that's how that's how Christchurch found out they've got 56 million fibers per liter of short fibers in the water. You have to test for the long and the short because the experts, and Dr. Arthur Frank is one of those experts, will tell you short or long, it doesn't matter. Asbestos is asbestos, and you guys know there is no safe level of asbestos. It's completely bizarre to me that if you were drinking a 9.98 micron fiber, that's okay. But if it's 10, that's that's that's the line you can't cross. So there's uh I'm I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been talking to one of my city counselors here in Regina, Saskatchewan for five years. City civic politicians are very scared of this because the water pipes are their responsibility. They have to pay for them, they have to raise taxes to pay for the water pipe replacement. But my argument to the counselor is, and get this, from 2010 to 2022, we had 2,477 asbestos cement water pipe breaks in Regina, Saskatchewan. Almost 2,500 asbestos cement water main breaks in a 12-year period. That's costing millions of dollars in emergency repairs. City councillors get that. Let's figure out a plan to fix this so we don't have those emergency repairs. You wouldn't know this, but in Calgary, Alberta, just our province next door, they've had a massive, it's been in the international news, they've had a massive feeder main break, a big primary main that delivers water to the distribution pipes. And they had a report done, and they said the reason these keep breaking is because you've ignored the water pipes for 20 years. Well, that's what's happening with asbestos ferment water pipes times two. Nobody knows about them. We're not paying attention to them, they're deteriorating and breaking in increasing numbers. It's time to address this issue.

Speaker 3 53:47

Yeah, I mean, bringing that back to New Zealand, you'll see if you look anywhere in the media the challenges we've we're facing, especially in Wellington Central with leaky pipes. But if we had the opportunity to talk to the authority and/or the minister, what would you really say to them was the most fet uh sensible first step, not to panic, not to alarm, but just good responsible management. How would you how would you uh broker that conversation with them if we have the opportunity?

Speaker 1 54:15

Well, I'm I'm trying to broker that very conversation with uh municipalities right across Canada. As a matter of fact, I just yesterday I applied to be a speaker at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities upcoming conference in uh in Edmonton this spring. And the message is this is nothing to be scared of. You're absolutely right. Don't panic. I don't want to scare anyone. I just want to inform you that these pipes are out there. It's something that we should take note of. I urge people to do their own research and read the research that's coming out of Italy. Read the research that came out of the United States of America in the 1970s and 80s. It's been around for a very long time. And I come back to what the United States found years ago, that ingested asbestos passes through the gastrointestinal tract. The World Health Organization is now saying, well, we're not quite sure about that. Health Canada is saying, who says it's not sure? We're not sure. This is what they're trying to fall back on. There are any one of a number of gastrointestinal cancers that are caused by drinking asbestos. We don't need to alarm people, but we need to make them aware that these pipes are out there, and there's a lot of them. There are a lot of these pipes around the world, and we need to start looking at this and taking it seriously.

Speaker 5 55:34

Just in regards to replacing the pipes, I know from experience when we've had the water leak at the hospital, my preference is to actually take the pipe out and then remove the residual soil around and put a new pipe in, whereas a quick way is to put another put a pipe in like a sleeve which splits the pipe. Now that's a big issue for me. Because as soon as you split the pipe, the contamination's still there. Alright, the the the water pipe, what about when it gets a leak in the future? They're digging it up, then they're digging up debris then.

Speaker 1 56:10

That's right.

Speaker 5 56:10

So my preference is definitely to remove it whole rather than splitting the pipe.

Speaker 1 56:16

What do you think about that? I I would agree with you, uh Jason, and and I'll go back to those NRC reports that were done here in Regina, Saskatchewan, because they're a treasure trove of information. And there's one on uh the safe removal and uh storage of old asbestos cement water pipes. Because what we do here in Regina when we replace them, we abandon in place. We abandon the old pipe in place. We put a new pipe in and we bury the old one and leave it. The uh the the research tells you don't do that because now you're creating a toxic, future, a future toxic waste zone. Number one. But here's something that's fascinating, and I just discovered this a couple of days ago. One of the studies from the NRC says that the pipes contain approximately, when they're brand new, they contain 20% asbestos. The rest is uh concrete and silica. So 80% is something else, but 20% of that asbestos cement pipe is asbestos fibers. Worksafe BC, which is takes care of the other end, you know, telling workers how to be safe when they're cutting these pipes, they've got a document on their website, an FAQ sheet, and the very first thing it says is that old asbestos cement pipe, aging pipes, can contain up to 80% asbestos. And back in the NRC reports, they show that during the lifespan of one of these pipes, during the course of its life cycle, the asbestos and the quartz particles remain intact in the pipe, whereas the other materials will wash away over time. This the concrete, the silica will wash away. So at the end of that pipe's life, it can be up to 80% asbestos.

Speaker 2 58:02

You bury that pipe, there's a that's a lot of asbestos.

Pipe Lifespan Myths And Aging Failures

Speaker 6 58:08

I do wonder, Julian, whether or not what we really need is more research. And I and I I say that knowing how hard it is to get research funding. Um but one of the points you just raised, which was really interesting, was around the fibre size. Um, and so it sounds to me very much like what we're being asked to do is look at the longer fibers because we know that they're the fibers that fit into that definition of being respirable, so getting into that lung network. But from what I've seen from other researchers, um, the shorter fibers are not out of the woods in in terms of being, you know, uh non-dangerous. But there's a researcher um called Dr. Jean Fower. I'm sorry, I hope that I got the name right. Um, and she's in America and she's done some incredible stuff that was looking at the link between those shorter fibres and autoimmune disorders in the population in America on exposure to, in particular, amicite and chracidolite, so blue and brown asbestos. And it's a really interesting study and really looking at, well, actually, uh, should we really be discounting those shorter fibres in terms of inhalation? Um, and certainly we shouldn't be discounting them in terms of ingestion. But what we really don't have is we just don't have the bank of evidence that we need to support that. And is that one place that we really should be looking to focus?

Speaker 1 59:33

That's a that's a big problem, Terrien. And as uh Dr. Frank said, uh, you know, he's been saying this for years, that there's little attention and little review and little research being done in this area. And as long as you don't have that research to back up what you're saying, it just continues on. Absolutely. We need to convince governments to fund the research. We need to take a much, much closer look at this. We should have been doing this over the past 30 years. That National Research Center at the University of Regina, we were doing that. We started to look at that. And I think what happened is we looked a little too closely and found a very, very big problem and just decided to shut the center down. Well, that's not responsible government. You know, it's it's about making tough decisions and it's about communicating that with people. It's about being honest with people. That's that's what keeps me going in this. When I when I first came across this, I started asking a lot of tough questions, and the answers were nonsensical, and it's just kept me going. You know, I uh in 2012, when I first raised this, one of the other people that came out was our provincial regulator at the time. And he came out and told people, well, yeah, I know about a study out of the U.S. that links asbestos drinking asbestos to cancer, but I haven't had the time to really look at that and test the rigor of that. Well, there are several American studies, not just one. And that person who said that would have been, would have had 20 to 30 years to test the rigor of that by the time he opened his mouth. So I asked for that study. Government of Saskatchewan still hasn't been able to find that American study that said it caused cancer. You'd think that'd be a priority. It's it's ludicrous, the the story that surrounds this. It's as much uh baffle gab and uh and uh jiggery pokery going on behind the scenes as there is in front. But absolutely, to the answer your question, yes, more research is needed. It's vital.

Speaker 3 1:01:23

Yeah, I suppose from a personal note, on a remediation standpoint, just picking up further from what Jason said around how he approaches removing those pipes. Here in New Zealand, um, we know that there's an A-class and a B class removal type and a non-notifiable removal type. Inherently, water pipes are deemed as a bonded material, such as they're a very low risk for removal, quote unquote, as they like to put it in the regulations. I think it paints the wrong picture because where I've been experienced in that space is that you will often get people removing small sections of the pipe as non-notifiable. There's no track record of that pipe being removed anywhere, which would definitely create challenges when you're trying to record the lengths of those pipes. Notwithstanding, in most cases where we've done all this, we found that where it has been removed, it's created significant debris that doesn't even account for where the pipes were prior to that leaking, meaning that that material would have been seeping out of the pipe for decades into the surrounding soils. That's not necessarily tested either. They just go in and they have a methodology, even our water services here in New Zealand, and they just rip out the pipe, um, leave it by the side, wrap it, and remove it and say job done. And you know, I have particular concerns personally that that's also created additional contamination in the surrounding soil. But also when those pipes are reconnected and used, you know, what what happened to any of that debris that was disturbed as part of that sectional replacement? Did that create additional water uh sorry, additional fiber release throughout the pipe and network, you know? So as you say, as they age, it's even beyond that, there's a uh a human factor where we are actually dealing with them. Are we doing it in the right way as well? Is the question I have.

Practical Management: Mapping, Testing, Replacement Plans

Speaker 1 1:03:20

And uh it's interesting that you mentioned that, Rob, because just recently, uh, after the inventory was done in Canada, I started making contact with water managers in the areas where they have a lot of asbestos cement pipe. And one area is uh Texeda Island, uh, one of our Gulf Islands between Victoria and Vancouver. And almost 100% of the water distribution pipes on that island are asbestos cement, about 60 kilometers of them. So I contacted the water manager and we had a great conversation. And he was very open with me. And number one, he said something that uh connected back to what Terry Ann was saying earlier. He said, his main concern with these old pipes is they cannot handle the pressure. If they get a fire on Texata Island, he said, these pipes will blow apart. They cannot handle the pressure needed to fight a fire. But his second concern and his second observation was this: he said, I cut into these pipes all the time. I'm repairing them all the time because I'm the guy in charge. I get into a full hazmat suit and I go in there and I cut that pipe. And he said, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, when I cut that pipe, some of the asbestos fibers will enter the water. They, one way or another, they'll enter the water, they'll enter the environment. And he was he was shocked when I was telling him some of the things. He had no idea. And this was a water manager. A lot of these people are not trained to deal with asbestos cement water pipes. And I've uh dealt with uh organized labor over here a lot for some reason, and and they run the water systems in the cities and municipalities. They're all unionized workers. I have a sneaking hunch that I don't think the unions have been uh as transparent with their members as they could have been, because I cannot get one union member in Canada to back support for an education campaign on these pipes. They don't seem to want to educate their members too much about them at all.

Speaker 5 1:05:13

Have we covered who? What who have said?

Speaker 1 1:05:15

Well, I can tell you if we're talking about standards, the United States of America is the only one. Everybody else is still looking at it. Everybody else is still depending on the who. I know you don't have animals called muskox in New Zealand, but we have them here in the far north of Canada, and they're these big woolly beasts, they look like buffalo, and if you've ever seen them on the uh documentaries, you'll see that when a wolf tries to attack the herd of muskox, they all put their bums together and their horns out. And that's what's happening here with asbestos. Everybody's got their horns out. As long as one chink in the armor doesn't break, and they can all look to the Who and say, nope, everything's fine, the Who. But if you get one country or two countries saying, you know, Something, something's going on here. Well, that's what's happening. You look at Australia right next door. They used to say the exact same thing as New Zealand. There's no convincing consensus. Now they've got an asbestos eradication organization. And they're just quietly replacing the pipes. I don't care how you do it. I don't care what you say about it. Just start replacing the pipes, coming up with an education campaign in the meantime to educate people about these pipes, what they can do in the interim, and test. Test for asbestos in water because that's the only and and do a proper test. That's the only way you're going to solve this situation.

Speaker 5 1:06:39

Can I just say this is it's a fascinating subject, but it's also terrifying at the same time. So is there anything else, Julian, that you haven't covered that you'd like to discuss?

Speaker 1 1:06:51

I I would just say, and I'll pick up on that point. It is it is frightening. It is frightening, but it's we need to be educated. We need to educate ourselves about this. There's nothing to be scared of here. There's nothing to panic about. We've we've known about this for a very long time. And as I said at the outset, this problem, unfortunately, will only get worse the older the pipes get. And that has borne out over time. In the 14 years that I've been studying this, the asbestos cement pipe stories that are out there, the breaks, the leakage is horrific. We need to start dealing with this. We need to stop pretending drinking asbestos is okay. And here's something interesting. The World Health Organization puts out a report called asbestos in drinking water every four years. Every four years they put out that report. And it's a couple of weeks overdue. It should be coming out in the very near future. When you look at the very last one that was issued in December 2021, the main source of asbestos in drinking water is old asbestos cement water pipes. The World Health Organization knows exactly what's going on here.

Speaker 2 1:07:59

They need to uh start start talking some sense. Rob, Terry Ann?

Methods: Relining, Removal, And Soil Contamination

Speaker 3 1:08:11

Yeah, I think I'll just jump in quickly there. Um it's been great talking to you today, Julia, and some really good facts there. And I just want to bring it a little bit wider into the asbestos space uh as we see it as well, and some of the talkers we've spoken to today, and what our experience has been. And I think your background coming from a media background as well is is is great for us than to listen to your perspective because if I'm honest, it's what we often see in the space is we we will confront authorities, uh governments, etc., with these risks, as we know as professionals in the industry. And we often get sidelined or it's delayed or you get pushed off to somebody else. You do get an opportunity to talk to some people, and then because of the political cycle here being only three years, it makes it even harder because you can take a year to get a meeting with the minister, if not a little bit longer, and before that time they're already on the campaign trail again, trying to get re-elected. So the um the approach really needs to be bipartisan. And and I think really what we're trying and aiming to do is if we can let more people know about these risks, it's an inherent and underlying risk with pipes and asbestos in you know in general terms, so that we can get some type of consensus. Because I think it's an international problem. Um, I think it's clear to say that, and I think that only together if we keep talking like this can we actually fix it. So that's really my main comment, and you know, just thank you a lot for coming on today and giving us the opportunity to listen firsthand from your perspective.

Speaker 1 1:09:51

Yeah, in in response, I'll just say thank you very much for having me, because that's absolutely right. Only by talking can we fix this, only by communicating and and sharing this story with others, uh, and making people aware uh will it be will it be fixed? Because the politicians are very uh very leery of this uh topic, and uh it's going to take a lot of convincing to uh, you know, they like to build shiny football stadiums and hockey rinks and things like that. They don't like to uh talk about things that nobody knows about and then try and solve the problem.

Speaker 2 1:10:24

So I I appreciate this opportunity. Sarianne?

Speaker 6 1:10:30

Yeah, look, uh absolutely fascinating. And you know, as asbestos geeks, obviously it's talking our language, but I hope that there's lots of other listeners out there that are that are interested and intrigued. I hope that they're not in panic mode. As you said, Julian, there's no need to be in panic mode. We what we need to do is find a calm and consistent way of actually, you know, working on this problem. Um, I've just got three really little quick points. My first point, and I hope that this is going to be very clear on the podcast for those of you watching at home, but if I just turn around, hopefully you can see all my back. So my back shows a list of words that are associated with our mesothelioma trust. And I was sitting in a cafe with a colleague the other day and a young, lovely gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and said, What's mesothelioma? And I explained that it was a cancer caused by asbestos. And he said, But there isn't any asbestos, that only happened in the 70s, it's it doesn't happen anymore. Now, he wasn't that young that I would have expected him to have never heard of it. And I was actually quite blown away that he honestly thought that it wasn't a problem anymore. And I think we are still fighting that, but people still think that it's not there because unfortunately it's invisible. And if you can't see it, then you don't know where it is. So that that's one point, which makes it very, very difficult. Um, it's been in my mind the whole time you've been talking about the fact that getting regulation, doing something about it, removing and replacing some of this network is super important. And knowing that it's going to be incredibly hard for countries that have got money but a lot of network, what about those countries that have maybe less in terms of environmental, uh in terms of finance, excuse me, um, that also have a lot of cement piping? What do we do to aid those communities? So I'm thinking particularly of the Pacific Islands, where I know that cement water networks exist, and thinking that not only have they got the burden of removing it, they've also got the burden that comes with trying to dispose of it. Because for a lot of these countries, they don't actually have landfills that can cope with asbestos contaminated material. Um, it's not like they have um uh opportunities to be able to do something about this. And how are we going to support those types of countries? Are we gonna turn around in the long run and say, well, from now on, um everybody's just gonna drink bottled water? Is that the solution? And if that is the solution, if that's what we end up saying to people, actually bottled water from now on, what burden does that put on our own landfills, on our own waste production? And isn't that an enormous financial issue? Is that not an enormous burden that's coming to us if we get to the point where we can't no longer drink from our water system? So surely when we're saying it's gonna cost so much money to remove this network, we need to think about well, if we don't do it, actually what's it gonna cost us? The pipe work's deteriorating. You already said that. Um, all those sorts of things really should be considered in a bit more of a holistic viewpoint rather than just saying, well, it's expensive. Um, but maybe I'm preaching to the converted. But they were just things running through my head.

Speaker 1 1:13:35

Yeah. And and you raise a very good point there, Terrienne, and I'll just pick up on that quickly. Uh I've for years I've maintained this is a case of you can pay me now or you can pay me later. That's what this is. And the the human beings that we are, we're quite creative when we run into problems. And there is a new uh method of dealing with these pipes uh that has just come out the past couple of years. It's called close tolerance pipe slurrification. Look it up. That's where I found out about uh uh the 630,000 miles of pipe in the U.S. This close tolerance pipe slurrification, it's it's not cutting open the trench, it's not relining, it's not what it is, as in layman's terms, if I may, it's inserting a couple of uh straws into the pipe and turning it into a slurry, grinding the interior of the pipe up and then sucking it out through those straws, encasing it in concrete and taking it away for disposal. Close tolerance pipe slurrification. It was fast-tracked by the US EPA in the last couple of years. That gives me hope that they're taking this seriously. So we're coming up with new ways to deal with this problem. But it will it will take money and it will take time. And in the interim, I urge people to test and notify residents when uh when they have an asbestos cement pipe, so they're educated.

Worker Safety, Training, And Transparency Gaps

Speaker 5 1:14:54

Yeah, and I agree there's got to be a structured and scheduled approach to replacing the pipes uh or making good, especially as the pipes are aging. Uh they are very old, uh, especially around the world, and they are deteriorating as we speak. And like we say, it's a it's a hidden problem because it's it's under the ground. We don't actually see rather than seeing the deterioration on the buildings and the asbestos, so sometimes it is forgotten. So on the asbestos still kills podcast YouTube channel, there'll be all the links to all the evidence and all the papers. Did you say there's a Google link where you can report asbestos pipes? Do you want to put that link on for you, Julian?

Speaker 1 1:15:40

Uh not a well, if you if if people want to write to me and let me know where their asbestos cement pipes are, I'd love to hear about it because I'm I'm fascinated by this. And uh uh the more people I can uh find out from, uh, you know, the more we can do to solve this problem. But I I don't have a Google link. What I would say is if people want to go to the Prevent Cancer Now website, we've got a great deal of information there. I'd uh I'd ask you to go there and do your own research. Look into this.

Speaker 5 1:16:08

That's great. Well, I've I think you're inspirational, and it's been fantastic having you on the asbestos still kills podcast today.

Speaker 6 1:16:17

Yes, absolutely. Look, that was the most fascinating conversation. Julian, we'd really like to thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your time and your knowledge, and also especially for having such a calm, a calm way of talking about this, because I actually think we need that. The last thing we need is people panicking, because once panic happens, then people stop um thinking in a nice linear fashion. So I think that's really important to us, and you've done it so well. I'd like to thank our audience. Thank you everybody for listening in today, and thanks again to our team. Now we'll be back again in about two weeks' time with our next podcast. Um, in the meantime, we're looking out for people who might be interested in coming and talking with us. Um we're interested in stories in uh about asbestos, but it doesn't have to be. We look we're interested in stories about any environmental contaminants. If you have a story and you'd like to talk to the team and you'd like to share that, please do get in contact with us. You can contact us by asbestos stillkills at gmail.com. Um there will be a link on the website if you want to go and have a look at that. And in the meantime, thank you for a fabulous conversation and um have a lovely week.

Speaker 2 1:17:25

Goodbye from Canada.

Speaker 5 1:17:30

The asbestos still kills podcast. All right, reserved. Thank you for listening to the asbestos still kills podcast. Presented by Robert McAllister, farm's director, Dr. Terry Amberry, the Environmental Innovation Centre, EIC, Jason Loma, Asbestos Management Consultants Limited, AMT. For more information on the Asbestos Stillkills podcast, go to www.asbestosstillkills.com For more information also to read and accept the podcast disclaimer before viewing or listening to this podcast go to www.asbestosstillkills.com or contact us by email at asbestosstillkills at gmail.com For more information on the Mercity Lioma Support and Asbestos Awareness Trust please go to www.msatrust.org.nz. Thank you.