TNAG-0642-FCO40-790-Kowloon-Walled-City-and-aircraft-safety-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 66

CONFIDENTIAL B

Part II DISCUSSION

Recommendation (1): Water Supply

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It is existing policy to supply water to the residents of the Walled City only through standpipes at its periphery. At present, six such standpipes serve the 27,000 residents, but site limitations now make it impossible for more stand- pipes to be erected. The obvious inadequacy manifests

itself in:

* widespread use of other sources of supply either to

supplement the standpipe supply or, more usually, as 3 complete substitute to it.

mounting pressure from Walled City residents for a household supply to be provided by Government.

The other sources of supply include water taken from a good number of artificial wells (usually sunk at the same time a new building is constructed), hand-carried water taken from standpipes by 'professional' water carriers, and also, as recent investigations have proven beyond doubt, water stolen from Government mains. These additional sources of supply are available to Walled City residents at a fee. Our information is that a monthly water charge varying from $10 - $60 (depending on quantity used) applies to direct household supplies, and that a charge of $1 per load of two four-gallon bucketfulls with an additional charge of $0.1 per floor applies to water being carried. The joint-departmental investigation which covered 80% of all the buildings in the Walled City, and about 1,200 households, showed that nearly all households made use of the "additional supply" and that probably some 1/3 availed themselves of Government water, another 1/3 on artificial well water (some mixed with government water) and the rest rely on hand-carried water.*

(* Information was verbally conveyed to CDO(KC) staff by

W.W.0. staff in the course of the survey.)

CONFIDENTIAL #B

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