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https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1870177/three-hong-kong-public-housing-tenants-join Health & Environment
Three Hong Kong public housing tenants join tainted water probe
Three academics, two from overseas, will also participate in commission hearings to give their views on lead poisoning and better regulation
Documents are brought in for the commission investigation being held at the Former French Mission Building in Central.Photo: Dickson Lee
Three public housing estate tenants affected by the lead-tainted-water scare have successfully sought to join a judge-led investigation into the scandal as concerned parties.
In addition, two overseas scholars who have taken part in World Health Organisation work to prevent lead poisoning and improve drinking water safety and one local academic will serve as independent expert witnesses to help Hong Kong find ways to improve the regulation of drinking water quality.
The arrangements were laid out at the preliminary hearing of the Commission of Inquiry into Excess Lead Found in Drinking Water, set up to determine the causes of water contamination, evaluate the existing regulatory system and make appropriate recommendations.
The two-man panel is chaired by High Court judge Mr Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai, with former ombudsman Alan Lai Nin as commissioner.
The hearings will start on November 2.
Two of the tenants, Lee Pui-yee of Kai Ching Estate and Liu Hui-ping of Kwai Luen Estate, are parents of children whose blood has been found to contain excessive lead.
The third, Chong So-nga of Kwai Luen Estate, is a breastfeeding mother who also had excessive lead in her blood.
Among water samples taken from the three homes, excessive lead as measured by WHO standards has been found only in Lee's flat, according to their solicitor, Jonathan Man Ho-ching.
"They are not only acting for themselves, but also for all water users in Hong Kong, that is everyone in Hong Kong," senior counsel Martin Lee Chu-ming, speaking for the three residents, told the commission.
Their applications to join the inquiry were approved hours later.
But Lee's appeal for the government to fund the residents' legal costs was not adopted, as Chan said the commission had no power to do so.
The commission had earlier issued letters to 15 parties requiring them to give evidence, the commission's senior counsel, Paul Shieh Wing-tai, revealed.
They are the Housing Authority, the Water Supplies Department, the four building contractors responsible for the construction of the 11 public housing estates involved in the scandal, their three subcontractors, three other sub-subcontractors and three licensed plumbers.
It was the first time the three sub-subcontractors - water pipe work companies Wing Hing, Sum Kee and Hang Lee - had been publicly named in the controversy. They did not send representatives to the preliminary hearing, while all other summonsed parties had lawyers present.
The commission was appointed by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying as a third official body to investigate the scandal, which broke in July. The other panels are a review committee under the Housing Authority and an investigation task force under the Water Supplies Department.
Two of the expert witnesses, Professor Joseph Lee Hun-wei and Professor John Fawell, who are experts in water quality from the fields of civil engineering and biology respectively, would independently verify the task force's findings, Shieh said.
Professor David Bellinger, chairman of the World Health Organisation's committee on guidelines for the prevention and treatment of lead poisoning, will testify on the health effects of lead in drinking water.
More than 20 incumbent and retired housing officials, including Housing Authority chairman Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, one of the deputy directors of housing, chief architects and chief building services engineers responsible for the 11 public housing projects in question, will give evidence.
Three officials from the Water Supplies Department will also testify, including the director.