Perth Children's Hospital: Lead found in water supply, contractor says

Updated January 25, 2017 14:23:35

Photo: The new Perth Children's Hospital in Nedlands has been plagued by problems during the build. (ABC News: Andrew O'Connor)

There is lead in the water being supplied to the yet-to-be-opened $1.2 billion Perth Children's Hospital, the project's builder says, as water regulators move to reassure the public the drinking water in the area is safe.

The John Holland-built facility has been plagued by problems, including asbestos contamination of parts supplied by a Chinese firm and, most recently, the issue of persistent lead levels in the water.

The lead issue has seen the project's timeline blow out substantially, with no opening date in sight.

John Holland project manager Lindsay Albonico spoke to a local Perth radio station this morning, after months of responding to media requests with no comment.

The State Government has repeatedly said the contamination was confined to the new hospital building and was not an issue at the adjacent Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

But Mr Albonico said John Holland had tested, and found physical evidence of lead in water being delivered to the hospital, and had delivered those results to the state representative for the project.

Photo: John Holland project manager Lindsay Albonico spoke on radio this morning but would not take questions from any other media. (ABC News: Tom Wildie)

"We've expanded the search for the source of lead and one of those searches involves the water that's delivered to the hospital," he said.

"And we've provided the state's representative with the lead results showing that there is lead, at times, in the water that's being delivered to the hospital."

Mr Albonico said despite extensive testing on all of components inside the buildings the company had been unable to find a lead source.

"Everything that we've installed as part of the PCH project, has been end-to-end tested, and we have not been able to locate the source of lead in those components," he said.

Mr Albonico said as recently as January they had discovered lead in water, but it was an intermittent issue.

Drinking water in area safe, corporation says

WaterCorp has moved to reassure residents in the area that the water supply is safe.

In a statement, the corporation said that when it became aware of the lead issue in September it conducted additional sampling within the water supply zone, which detected no lead.

"Mt Eliza water supply zone supplies water to the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre site," the statement said.

"Water is then on-supplied to the PCH site via a private network of pipes. We do not directly supply to the PCH site."

But Mr Albonico said the water was taken from a "ring main" around the medical precinct.

"We take water from what's called a ring main which circumvents, or circulates around, the QEII medical precinct," he said.

"We connect to that ring main, that's where we draw water from."

The office for the Executive Director of Public Health also sought to reassure the public.

"Given the known problems at the PCH site, North Metropolitan Health Service has increased its frequency of water quality testing on the QEII site," a statement from the regulator said.

"Two reports from October and December of 2016 have been provided to the appropriate regulators in the Department of Health.

"The Environmental Health Directorate in the Department of Health has reviewed both reports, which document compliance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines."

WaterCorp said there had been no lead detected in Perth drinking water in the past 15 years, and tests were conducted annually.

The State Government has been contacted for comment.

Topics: government-and-politics, health, wa, perth-6000

First posted January 25, 2017 12:59:44