Hong Kong authorities have pledged to start replacing a bitumen-coated water pipe this year, after the city’s leader instructed officials to speed up efforts to resolve the water quality issue at two Fanling public housing estates.
Chief Executive John Lee convened a high-level emergency meeting with bureau chiefs and department heads on Friday, a week after residents of Queen’s Hill Estate and the neighbouring Shan Lai Court reported finding unknown black particles in their water supply. Some residents in Shan Lai Court reportedly suffered from diarrhoea.
Secretary for Development Bernadette Lin made the announcement on Saturday after visiting an upstream location in the water supply network with Roger Wong, water supplies director, and three water safety experts from a newly established expert group.
Wong previously said on several occasions that test results showed the water was safe to drink, including when the Water Supplies Department (WSD) identified on Thursday that black particles in the drinking water were bitumen and resin.
On Friday, Lee ordered government officials to replace the 400-metre water supply steel pipe upstream that uses bitumen as a protective coating and set up a 24-hour hotline to handle residents’ enquiries.
He gave “four instructions” to relevant bureaux and departments: to trace the source of the particles, to establish an expert group to assist in the investigation, to immediately install and enhance filter systems in all buildings at the two housing estates, and to speed up the efforts to resolve the problem.
The chief executive also told the WSD to test water samples from the tanks at the two estates daily and publish the test results every day.
Michael Wong, the deputy financial secretary, was appointed to oversee the implementation of those tasks.
Site visit
On Saturday, during a site visit with Roger Wong and the three experts from the Drinking Water Safety Advisory Committee (DWSAC), the development chief said that the WSD would replace the 400-metre section of water pipe with bitumen protective coating on its inner wall, believed to be the source of the black particles.
The replacement works will commence this year, Linn added.
The WSD will also deploy robots to detect the condition of the bitumen coating inside the pipe and submit an investigation report to the expert group within two weeks, she said.
According to test reports posted by the WSD, based on samples collected from Friday to Sunday, the water at the two estates was clear, without black particles and carried no toxic substances.
Opened in 2021, the two Fanling residential estates share the same water supply system. Queen’s Hill Estate is a public rental housing estate, while Shan Lai Court is part of the government’s subsidised home ownership scheme.
