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In response to media enquiries on the preliminary opinion of the experts from the Commission of Inquiry into Excess Lead Found in Drinking Water in respect of drinking water sampling submitted to the Commission today (November 13), a spokesman for the Water Supplies Department (WSD) gave the following reply:
The WSD has noted that the experts of the Commission of Inquiry into Excess Lead Found in Drinking Water submitted the Preliminary Joint Opinion in respect of drinking water sampling to the Commission today. The experts pointed out that fully flushed samples might serve the purpose of assessing the general quality of drinking water as supplied.
The objective of taking drinking water samples by the WSD is to check whether the quality of water consumed by the general public is in compliance with the guideline values and provisional guideline values stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO)'s "Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality". Thus, the WSD established the sampling procedure with reference to the International Standards Organization (ISO)5667 (Part 5) as recommended in the WHO's "Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality" to flush the pipework for two to five minutes before taking water samples to ensure that the water samples are representative and the water quality data can be compared with the respective guideline values and provisional guideline values stipulated by the WHO so as to ascertain that the water is suitable for consumption. As such, drinking water that is tested with such method and in compliance with the WHO's requirement is safe for drinking. There is no conflict between the concerned water sampling method and the opinion of the Commission's experts.
In fact, the water sampling method should be determined according to the objective of the water sampling.
Ends/Friday, November 13, 2015
Issued at HKT 23:05
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