Health Concerns About Tear Gas

What are the health effects from inhaling tear gas after five months in HK?

The Hong Kong government seems to think residents don't need to be concerned about the impact of some 5,000 rounds of tear gas that have been fired after almost five months of protests.

Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said today that water and air quality in Hong Kong have not been affected by the firing of tear gas.

Health minister Sophia Chan doesn't have any concerns

On a radio show today, Chan said: "According to the air quality index recorded by the Environmental Protection Department, there are no irregularities from June till now," she said, adding the Water Supplies Department reported similar findings.

She added that tear gas had a limited diffusion range, and that there had been directions given to cleaners on handling affected areas.

Her statements contradict what local medical professors wrote in the medical journal The Lancet, where they reported the deployment of tear gas in subtropical environments such as Hong Kong could expose people to high concentrations of chemical irritants over a prolonged period.

The professors also raised concerns about the lack of government-led decontamination and urged the administration to invest in health surveillance and long-term environmental monitoring.

Emily Chan authored a report in The Lancet

In an article published in The Lancet last week, the medical team led by Professor Emily Chan Ying-Yang, of Chinese University, said she was concerned about tear gas deployment in enclosed spaces, such as busy railway stations and near commercial shopping centres, as well as high-density residential areas that sit in the "hot and humid subtropical environment of Hong Kong".

The tear gas used by police contains o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, an irritant that interacts with mucocutaneous sensory nerve receptors, according to the report. Emily Chan said the government should have official guidelines and self-help advice on dealing with the side effects of tear gas.

Citing a published systematic review of 5,910 people exposed to chemical irritants, the team said two had reportedly died, and there were cases of permanent disabilities, including blindness, vegetative state from traumatic brain injury, amputations and loss of limb function, as well as persistent respiratory complaints, among 58 others.

Humidity in subtropical areas could cause tear gas to linger

"However, data on long-term sequelae, carcinogenicity, and environmental consequences in the urban context are scarce," the medical team wrote.

The government doesn't seem to care about the health affects of accumulated tear gas fired on people every week in Hong Kong, nor does it care to keep track of how it impacts residents.

We may not see the effects until a few months or years down the road. By then it will be hard to prove it was tear gas.

Just another sign the government has a hands-off approach to making Hong Kong better.

Perhaps even more ironic is that health minister Sophia Chan also warned people that flu season was around the corner and encouraged people who were unwell to wear masks despite the anti-mask ban in place.

We may not know the long-term effects of tear gas

Just demonstrates how some people don't really have long-term thinking in Hong Kong...

Hong Kong's Lackadaisical Approach to Water

In the 1960s, people had to make their water supply last four days at a time

The Hong Kong government doesn't seem to care about its residents wasting water because it gets 80 percent of it cheaply from across the border via the Dongjiang River.

However, environmental groups and think tanks have been repeating their chorus that people should be paying the true cost of water so that they will think twice when they turn on the tap.

Civic Exchange released its latest report called The Illusion of Plenty, saying that water tariffs need to be raised to cope with a HK$1.35 billion revenue loss, as one-third of the city's water is being wasted.

One-third! And HK$1.35 BILLION.

Today 80 percent of our freshwater comes from China

Dr Frederick Lee Yok-shiu, associate professor in the geography department at the University of Hong Kong, said a typical family of three in the city should be paying more than double their current water bill. He estimated their monthly fee of HK$94 should be raised to HK$194.

While the price of water has increased, Lee says for political reasons the tariffs have been frozen, and so Hong Kong people have this illusion that water is plentiful -- and cheap.

As a result, Hong Kong has one of the world's highest rates of per-capita water usage, and the rates have been steadily increasing since 1998. The city's annual consumption in 2015 reached 1.25 billion cubic metres -- the equivalent to 5.5 billion full bathtubs -- about 21 percent higher than the global average.

While Civic Exchange chairman Evan Auyang says the water tariff system should reflect the true cost of fresh water, he also cautions that reforms should not impact low-income families' access to fresh water.

I'm not saying we should raise the cost of water for everyone," he said. "But for certain private companies that are using it in very large quantities, you should charge them more."

That would include places like restaurants, cafes, and laundry shops. The government needs to do more to really get people to be more aware of their water usage. In the office washroom and the gym I observe how people use water and it's shocking how they leave taps running, or take very long showers, when five minutes will do.

Raising water prices would at least help kick start people's perceptions about water and treat it more as a precious commodity. The government also needs to be on top of its water system, as the Water Supplies Department took up to two years to address leaking pipes in 2015.

And although the government started a campaign in 2014 to get people to save 10 litres of water a day, Civic Exchange estimated that even if the campaign reached its target, it would only save 2.6 percent of freshwater consumption.

My parents' generation remember having to take baths in a large bucket, and using the leftover water to wash rice to wash the dishes, as the starch removed oil from bowls and plates.

They also remember when water shortages were common place in the 1960s where they had to save enough water to last four days. Imagine the outrage if that happened now?

Politically and socially more needs to be done. We cannot afford to waste water anymore.

CY Leung's Arrogant Administration

These people refuse to take further responsibility for the lead-in-water scandal

The Hong Kong government -- doesn't matter if it was under the leadership of Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen or incumbent Leung Chun-ying -- has become oblivious to the needs of ordinary people.

An independent investigation this past week revealed the government kept "passing the buck" when it came to the lead-in water scandal that left hundreds of people in public housing estates, including children, babies and pregnant woman ingesting water with more than 10 micrograms of lead per litre, the maximum recommended by the World Health Organization.

For months residents had to get water for basic needs

The Water Supplies Department claims it didn't understand WHO guidelines adopted in 1994. How can people in this department not understand the guidelines? We are not expecting senior officials to know them, but surely there are specialists in the department who do? Or has the government hired completely incompetent people with no knowledge or experience in dealing with water quality?

It also turns out no one was inspecting the contractors to inspect the licensed plumbers to check that they were using non-lead solder for fresh water pipes. Is it me, or is it not obvious that if one is working on water pipes that non-lead solder should be used? Sounds pretty obvious to me.

Never mind. But the fact that no one checked -- not even the government -- is shocking. Again -- are there not qualified people in the department following up on these things?

Then to cap it all off, while four senior officials apologized for not preventing the scandal -- Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po, Housing and Transport Secretary Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, director of housing Stanley Ying Yiu-hong, and director of Water Supplies Enoch Lam Tin-sing.

Carrie Lam responds to results of the investigation

But Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor did not.

She insisted that no single government official committed a serious mistake that led to the incident.

How can she say that? How can she say that no one in the Leung administration needs to take responsibility for people ingesting high levels of lead in the water? We will see children with developmental problems in the next few years because they drank that water. Who will assist these families who did nothing wrong except drink the water coming from their tap because they thought the government was monitoring the water quality?

For Lam to not even apologize is appalling. That shows the government doesn't care about the average Hong Kong person at all. We are nothing to them. There's lead in your water? Not my problem.

What does the government do for us then?

Probably the worst part is that there is no way of kicking these incompetent people out of office -- there is no opposition party. We have no chance of recall at all.

How has the government degenerated into a bunch of bureaucrats who have no regard for us?

Clean water is a basic right. That was violated by the government, the contractors and plumbers. But really it was the government who should have been checking all along.

We pay our taxes. Is it too much to ask for people to run our city properly and efficiently with a good dose common sense?

Another Blame Game Begins

Residents in five housing estates are collecting water from other sources

Over the weekend it was discovered five public housing estates in Kowloon City, Kwai Chung, Sham Shui Po, Sha Tin and Tuen Mun have excessive lead in the water samples and it is believed this came from the pipes.

The levels of lead were found to have exceeded standards set by the World Health Organization.

The Hong Kong government was quick to reveal licensed plumber Lam Tak-sum as being responsible for installing the pipes, saying it was the media that demanded to know.

This is a complete 180-degree turn from the government refusing to divulge how much it had spent on the campaign push for residents to accept the political reform package that failed last month in the Legislative Council.

Licensed plumber Lam Tak-sum surrounded by the media

But back to the story. As expected, the media swarmed the wheelchair-bound Lam today and while he admitted to taking some responsibility for the pipes connecting the water mains to the housing blocks' water supplies, not all of the blame should be shifted on him. The pipes were made from pre-cast material, so how could he know what material was in it?

The government says he should have known, and that Lam was also responsible for the pipes connecting the water tanks and households.

But who paid for the pre-cast material? Why didn't someone in the Water Supplies Department check to see if the pipes were the correct ones to be used?

But more importantly, why is the government not investigating the incident properly before assigning blame?

In the meantime, residents in these housing estates are terrified of the possible health impacts, as practically all of them use the water for cooking, bathing and drinking (boiled water).

At first the government gave out bottled water to residents, but this is not feasible in the long term. And Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung Bing-leung is suggesting that all the fresh water pipes would have to be replaced, which would impact thousands of households; and yet there should be minimal disruption for these families.

Uh yeah.

This is a major infrastructure problem in existing buildings and you are asking that there be as little disruption as possible?

Obviously Cheung has not undergone a renovation in his home before, or understands the complexity of the problem at hand.

People are going to be inconvenienced, but for how long is the main issue.

In the meantime, the way this government is handling the situation is far from ideal. It is not taking leadership on the issue and would rather blame someone for it instead.

Why Waste Water?

Have you signed up at the Water Supplies Department website?

Finally the Hong Kong government is starting to urge its residents to save water.

Our beloved Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po wrote on his blog in Chinese, encouraging the public to get into the habit of using less water to prepare for "the unpredictable future" in the global supply of fresh water.

He said the city cannot rely solely on exploring other sources of fresh water without residents cutting back on their usage.

Currently each resident in Hong Kong uses an average of 130 litres of fresh water every day, higher than other major cities in the world, including Singapore and London.

"We would need to develop more water resources while cutting our water consumption so that we can be in a better position to tackle any uncertainties that may arise in the future," he wrote.

We're wondering how much water Chan and his family uses

He was referring to the shrinking global supply of fresh water due to world population growth, economic development and climate change.

Chan said the Water Supplies Department is exploring new sources of fresh water supply, such as desalination, extension of the seawater for flushing supply system, sewage recycling and rainwater harvesting. But the government also needs residents to decrease the amount of water they use.

Each Hong Konger use 90 litres of flushing water every day, which adds up to a whopping 3.3 million litres -- do we really go to the toilet that often? It's enough to fill the main pool at the Victoria Park Swimming Pool Complex 1,100 times, Chan wrote.

"To adjust our daily habit in water usage does not mean we will go back to the days when water supply was restricted," he wrote. "Water saving can be easy without sacrificing the quality of life."

Some of his tips for a family of four:

Avoid leaving the water running when saving and brushing teeth (save 26 litres);

Soak fruit and vegetables instead of rinsing them under running water (save 14 litres);

Spend a minute less in the shower (save 10 litres).

There's more tips here from the Water Supplies Department.

While Chan is keen to get people on board, the government isn't doing enough to really push people -- force them -- to rethink their habits.

For example there's ads on the bus telling people to join the "Let's Save 10L Water" campaign, and it shows a couple sitting by the laptop to register, but not having them show how to save water -- like the above tips Chan talked about. The government should be literally demonstrating to people how to curb water usage and why it is necessary, otherwise they think this is just another lame public service announcement.

What about forcing all public washrooms to have signs telling people to save water? And while we're at it to use only one paper towel? A friendly reminder like that can hopefully get people to think about the amount of water they are using and try to cut down.

The government really needs to step up the urgency of the issue because we all need to use less water. It should also be charging restaurants and companies for using far more water than we do.

Even if we are willing to pay top dollar for water (which I doubt, but if push comes to shove...), we should still conserve this precious resource.

What would be fun is monitoring Chan's water usage and see how much his family uses each month...