Hong Kong Housing Authority and Housing Department

Water Testing Programme

Water Testing Programme

The Government earlier appointed the International Expert Panel on Drinking Water Safety (“IEP”) to provide advice on issues regarding drinking water safety and assist the Water Supplies Department (WSD) in developing the Enhanced Water Quality Monitoring Programme (“Enhanced Programme”). The Enhanced Programme has been launched to collect drinking water samples from consumers’ taps and test the six metals (including Lead) that could be present in the internal plumbing system for monitoring the drinking water quality in Hong Kong and facilitating future review of the drinking water standards in Hong Kong. The Enhanced Programme would cover all public and private buildings.

The IEP considered that as the Government had collected a large number of water sampling data for lead testing in 2015 and adopted a very stringent criterion, in general, the unaffected Public Rental Housing (PRH) estates were effectively distinguished from the affected estates.

Nevertheless, given that copper pipes involving solder joints were in general used in PRH developments completed in and after 2005 (“post-2005 PRH developments”), in order to put the mind of residents in ease, the IEP agreed that the Government could supplement additional water samples from these post-2005 PRH developments for testing of lead if any domestic blocks in such developments were not selected for testing in the first year of the Enhanced Programme.

In this connection, WSD and its independent consultant randomly select premises from post-2005 PRH developments for collection of water samples for testing of lead. The work started in August 2018 and was completed in early November 2018. The test results of all water samples complied with the standard.

Please click the following link for the weekly report of the test results of water samples:

Weekly Report
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