Call for more stringent water tests at new Hong Kong public housing estates before residents move in

The water and soldering materials of pipes installed in public housing estates should be subjected to more layers of stringent checks and tests for levels of lead and other heavy metals before flat occupants move in, the chairman of a Housing Authority review committee said yesterday.

Three layers of checks should be undertaken, by the estate's main contractor, the authority and the Water Supplies Department, committee chairman Cheung Tat-tong said.

The soldering materials should also be centrally procured by the main contractor so as to avoid the use of anything substandard, according to recommendations in the committee's interim report, issued yesterday on the lead-in-water crisis afflicting public housing estates.

It has been three months since the scandal broke out in early July, spooking residents of Kai Ching Estate in Kowloon City with lead concentrations above the World Health Organisation standard of 10 micrograms per litre in their drinking water. So far, government tests have unearthed excessive lead in the water of 11 public housing estates, one private residential development, three primary schools and two kindergartens.

At least 139 people, mostly children under six, had blood lead levels exceeding the WHO standard of 5mcg per decilitre.

"Looking back, we now know we did not have sufficient knowledge and awareness of the risks [of lead in soldering materials]," Secretary for Transport and Housing Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung said.

He accepted the committee's recommendations and urged the authority to improve its monitoring system.