Hong Kong to be spared the salty tap-water woes of Macau
The two cities draw on different sources for their supplies from the mainland
Agnes Lam and Freda Wan in Macau
17 January 2005
South China Morning Post

Hong Kong would not suffer from the salty tap-water problem affecting Macau as the two cities have different sources of supply, the water supplies chief said yesterday.

Macau's tap water turned salty after a rare drought in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces reduced water levels on the Pearl River's tributaries. The salty minerals of sodium and chloride come from seawater that spills back into the river tributaries because of low freshwater levels.

Hong Kong's water supplies director William Ko Chan-gock said the Dongjiang (East River) was the source of the city's supply and its current was stronger than the Xijiang (West River) where Macau drew its supply. Mr Ko said local reservoirs were 70 per cent full and the supply was enough to last six months.

His comments came as Macau families stocking up on bottled water have become a daily routine since the tap water became salty. Macau's water company has suggested residents use bottled water, or mix bottled water with tap water before consumption.

"We use a lot of drinking water because I have a family of four people and a dog," said Wong Ping, a housewife.

Today, the salinity level is forecast to reach 420 milligrams per litre in Macau. The World Health Organisation standard is 250 mg/l. However, the WHO standard sets comfortable taste as a criteria.

Drinking high-salinity water might affect infants, the elderly, or people with certain illnesses such as kidney problems, but would not affect regular adults, said Oscar Chu Wai-man, deputy general manager of Macau Water. The intake of sodium and chlorides varies from person to person.

"Even drinking water of 2,000mg/l salinity could be just fine for a person's health," Mr Chu said.

Philippe Wind, executive director of Macau Water said: "2004 was one of the driest years in the Guangxi province in the past 50 years. Some districts in Guangxi had almost no rainfall in the past two months."

Zhuhai and Zhongshan also suffer from the salinity problem. A hydro-engineering project will start today in the Guizhou , Guangxi and Guangdong provinces to address the problem. It will redirect an estimated 400 million to 700 million cubic metres of water to the West River and North River tributaries.

Rising tide of trash found in HK waters
Amount of waste collected doubles in decade, says Marine Department
8 June 2009
South China Morning Post

Hong Kong has failed to halt the rising tide of trash dumped into the sea, with the amount collected nearly doubling in a decade, the Marine Department says.

More than 12,900 tonnes of trash was cleared from waters around the city last year, a 5 per cent increase over 2007. This compares with 6,750 tonnes in 1998. Yet the latest figure does not include the 15,500 tonnes collected at beaches by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD).

Lisa Christensen, director of Coastal Cleanup Challenge, an international event to promote ocean protection, said statistics from cleanup events showed that at least three-quarters of the floating trash was produced locally.

"The extensive data we collected over the years indicates Hong Kong, as a society, suffers from a 'pick up after me' syndrome," she said.

"There is a lack of awareness and responsibility for the masses of waste we generate.

"There is also insufficient government support to the recycling industries, and subsequently we are finding enormous amounts of recyclable waste, especially plastics, along Hong Kong's beaches and in the water."

About a quarter of the trash collected last year, nearly 3,000 tonnes, was from Aberdeen and Tin Wan, where fishing vessels unload their catch on to a wholesale market.

Off Central, where a major reclamation project is under way, the volume of trash removed topped 600 tonnes - a rise of 23 per cent on 2006.

The fastest-growing areas for dumping trash are Chek Lap Kok, the airport island, and the Rambler Channel, near the Kwai Chung container port - with 26.4 and 65.5 tonnes last year, an increase of 7.6 and 2.3 times respectively over 2006.

Clarus Chu Ping-shing, a senior marine conservation officer at WWF Hong Kong, said some trash might have been swept in across the border in bad weather.

"Whenever there are heavy downpours and the water current is right, [a massive amount of] rubbish will drift into the city. Much of it is foam, broken furniture, plastic bags and bottles with labels written in simplified Chinese characters," he said.

Mr Chu blamed the poor system of collecting trash on the mainland but said local fishermen and holidaymakers should be responsible for their waste and not throw things into the sea.

He also pointed the finger at the Hong Kong government for adopting a fragmented approach to the problem, with responsibilities for gazetted beaches, non-gazetted beaches, harbour areas, ecologically sensitive areas and underseas assigned to different departments.

The Marine Department is responsible for trash floating outside beaches, and relies on a contractor operating 70 vessels to collect and transport it. The department said it had implemented a series of measures, including publicity and education, to counter the problem.

It is also offering free trash-collection services to vessels and harbour patrols to enforce the littering law. A spokesman said: "The department will flexibly deploy resources to cope with expected and observed situations having regard to the prevailing weather conditions."

A spokesman for the FEHD said it regularly cleaned up beaches.

"The number of workers and the cleansing frequency vary, depending on the actual situation of the individual ungazetted beach and the amount of waste to be cleared. It could be as many as 40 workers and as frequently as twice a week."

Study urges HK rethink on water amid climate change
5 December 2009
SCMP

Hong Kong should devise a water policy that goes beyond cross-border negotiations over supply and pricing in light of rising climate change threats and competition for the precious resource, a local think tank says.

Hong Kong and Macau should be involved with the Pearl River Water Resources Commission and work with other delta cities to avoid future conflicts and carry out research into adapting to climate change, it says.

The think-tank also suggests a task force be set up to review water policy issues. But it says increasing water tariffs is not politically feasible now but is desirable in the longer term once the public recognises the importance of water security.

The Civic Exchange study, "Liquid Assets: Water Security and Management in the Pearl River Basin and Hong Kong", was released yesterday.

The study says as the PRD basin is one of a few relatively healthy river systems on the mainland, regional water resources management and co-operation should be stepped up to tackle pollution and climate change threats.

But the think tank warns that Hong Kong faces at least two challenges towards this goal. One is the lack of a genuine water policy and the other is its detachment from its Guangdong counterparts in regional collaboration.

"The government does not have a water policy. The only policy is the negotiation of price and quantity. It is not involved in the long-term management of water resources," Christine Loh Kung-wai, chief executive officer of Civic Exchange, said.

She said the "supply-led attitude" of officials in water resources planning meant the policy only focused on the "contract, piping and cleansing" of imported Dongjiang water, a guarantee given by Beijing since the 1960s. Loh is also concerned about the intensifying competition for water along the Dongjiang watershed.

A scramble for water could evolve into conflicts between cities, especially in times of drought or the increasing demands of economic development.

Loh said it did no good to the region as a whole if the cities held a competitive attitude rather than co-operating to manage water demand and supply in the long term.

A Development Bureau spokesman said the total water management strategy promulgated in 2007 also addressed the water supply issues relating to climate change and low rainfall.

"The strategy puts emphasis on containing the growth of water demand through conservation while water supply management will also be strengthened," he said.

The spokesman said a study was being done to identify how to adapt the use of water resources to climate change.

As to regional co-operation, he said Hong Kong had good relations with Guangdong authorities, including the Pearl River Water Resources Commission.

Dirtier harbour defies logic with treatment in place, expert says
12 February 2011
SCMP

Few people in Hong Kong know more about waste water treatment than Professor Joseph Lee Hun-wei. Yet the respected expert confessed yesterday that he was as baffled by the sudden surge in bacteria levels at the centre of Victoria Harbour as the public - particularly given the city opened a new disinfection centre just last year that reduced the amount of sewage released into the harbour.

Lee, an award-winning environmental hydraulic expert and now vice-president for research and graduate studies at the University of Science and Technology, admitted being frustrated at being unable to solve the mystery behind the growth of Escherichia coli bacteria in the harbour - just as the water quality seemed to be improving steadily.

"Obviously, something has happened. But I am not sure if this is a one-off thing or a chronic process," said Lee, who advised the government on the HK$19 billion Harbour Area Treatment Scheme.

He suspected the cause could be damage to an undersea sewage pipe or malfunction of the city's newest and largest sewage treatment works on Stonecutters Island, although neither case could be proven as yet.

Lee, who received a top innovation prize from the State Council last year for developing a computer model for waste water disposal or flood prevention, said the harbour findings were very alarming.

He said the E coli level at a bathing beach should not exceed 180 units per 100 millilitres of water. The annual average reading at the harbour opposite Wan Chai was found to surpass 8,000 units. The high reading upsets the trend in declining E coli levels over the past decade and throws into doubt the revival of the historic cross-harbour swim. "The reading is astronomical and unacceptably high even before the disinfection facility at the Stonecutters treatment works came into service last year," Lee said.

That facility, as part of the centralised treatment works, started operation early last year to suppress bacteria levels in the treated effluent being discharged into the harbour. It handles daily about 1.4 million tonnes of sewage collected from Kowloon and eastern Hong Kong Island, or about 75 per cent of the total waste water generated in urban areas.

The remaining 25 per cent of sewage, amounting to 450,000 tonnes and mostly generated in the northern and western shores of Hong Kong Island, is pumped into the harbour after simple screening.

The polluting practice is expected to continue for four more years until a deep tunnel network channelling waste water from the two areas to Stonecutters is built. The bacteria-laden effluent has been drifting westwards, causing the closure of seven Tsuen Wan beaches since 2003.

Lee said the disinfection, through a process of chlorination and dechlorination, was so powerful that it could remove bacteria by up to 99 per cent, making the rise even more puzzling. "The disinfection should have made the water quality better. There is no reason why the level has even gone up higher than before the facility was in place," he said.

A spokesman for the Drainage Services Department, which is responsible for running the treatment works, said the disinfection facility had been operating smoothly and the E coli level in the discharged effluent was within normal standards.

He said the department was trying to see whether sewage outfalls in the harbour area had been damaged.

A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Department, which is in charge of sewage disposal policy, said E coli levels in the western harbour area were reduced by up to 57 per cent last year.

Water-use survey in pipeline
The Standard
Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Water "inspectors" will be checking on 1,000 households from today, to find out how they use water - the first such exercise of its kind. Families will be selected randomly.

Although the government has launched a series of campaigns calling on people to use less water, Hongkongers are still known to waste the precious resource.

For example, the Water Supplies Department some years ago started a labeling scheme that points to the water efficiency of equipment such as washing machines and shower heads.

However, the department said the average Hongkonger still uses 220 liters of water a day - way above the international average of 170 liters.

While insisting the Domestic Water Consumption Study is to prepare the SAR for uncertainties, such as low rainfall and climate change, department assistant director Bobby Ng Mang-tung admitted that people here use a lot more water when compared with other places.

But he said there has been no obvious increase in the use of water over the past three to five years.

Under the study, 30 inspectors will conduct face-to-face interviews with selected households on their water consumption behavior and knowledge until the end of the year.

They will also record the initial reading of the water meter and other information such as the size of the bathtub.

Each household will get a log book to record their water consumption for a week. They will need, for instance, to record the length of their showers. The inspector will return in a week's time to collect the log book and take a second reading of the water meter.

Families selected for the study will be informed of the interview two weeks in advance.

Ng said there are no plans to increase water charges, which have remained frozen at 1995 levels.

"We have done research that says the effect of a price increase will only last for a short time. Water is a necessity. At this stage we have no plans to increase the charge."

Desalination plant to boost water supply
The Standard
Thursday, October 13, 2011

A new seawater desalination plant will be built at Tseung Kwan O to meet the ever-increasing water needs of the SAR, Donald Tsang said.

To be built on a 10-hectare site, it will supply 5percent of the territory's water needs when construction is completed within the next decade.

"We are conducting a detailed study and doing field surveys to assess the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of building a medium-sized desalination plant," Tsang said.

A thousand households will take part in surveys of water-use habits, a government source said.

It will take two years for the study and seven years to build the plant.

Meanwhile, the government is negotiating a new agreement with the Guangdong authorities for the supply of Dongjiang water for the next three years, he added.

The source said the cost of importing drinking water from Dongjiang is HK$9 per cubic meter and that of desalination is HK$12. The cost is bound to drop as desalination technology matures.

But Greenpeace said the new plan does not tackle the root cause of the water shortage.

"There is intense demand for water in the Pearl River Delta between industrial users and households in Guangdong and Hong Kong. It is necessary to stabilize the water supply by exploring new avenues," campaign manager Gloria Chang Wan-ki said.

Meanwhile, Tsang is allotting HK$330 million in subsidies for bus and taxi operators to make their vehicles greener.

This includes HK$180 million for franchised bus companies to buy 36 electric vehicles for trial runs, and HK$150 million will be given as a one-off subsidy for owners of LPG taxis and light buses to replace catalytic converters.

The target routes for electric buses will be Causeway Bay, Mong Kok, Nathan Road and Central.

Kowloon Motor Bus spokeswoman Susanne Sin said: "Our first super capacitor bus was tested last June. It was a left-hand drive vehicle from the mainland so new electric buses will be made suitable for Hong Kong drivers."

But To Sum-tong, director of the taxi driver branch of the Motor Transport Workers General Union, said: "When the temperature falls under 12 degrees, these converters in the taxis may not function."

東江水愈貴愈污糟
2012年04月23日(一)
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東江水污染問題愈趨嚴重，儘管中央近年在東江源頭附近鄉鎮力推「禁採礦」、「停種橙」及「多植樹」等保水防污措施，但最基本的家居垃圾問題卻仍未解決。東方報業集團記者直擊東江源頭發現垃圾問題嚴重，河流沿岸經常堆積大量塑膠袋、化肥包裝袋等垃圾。當地官員直認財政緊絀下，無力處理垃圾問題。有環保團體狠批廣東省政府每年淨袋港府購買東江水的逾三十五億元，卻不願撥出分毫鼓勵東江上游地區的鄉鎮改善水質，令污染問題持續惡化，變相加重港府淨化食水的成本。

江西省尋烏縣三標鄉乃東江源頭，該縣擁有一百五十公里長的東江流域，相當於四分之一條東江河。水源主要供應香港、深圳、惠州、廣州等下游發達城市，既是粵港重要的飲用水源，也是重點水質保護區。東方報業集團記者趁着復活節假期，跟隨香港環保團體「地球之友」親赴三標鄉東江源村考察，村內現時住有約二十戶居民，村民普遍年過四十歲，他們主要靠種植水稻及橘橙維生。記者發現村民不時隨手將垃圾棄置山坡，令岸邊積存大量垃圾，包括塑膠袋、洗衣粉袋及化學肥料包裝袋等。

村民垃圾棄山坡

奇怪的是村裏雖設有焚燒爐和垃圾處理中心，但連日來均不見工作人員工作，垃圾處理中心積存的垃圾亦已存放多時。住在東江源村逾二十年的謝太（四十五歲）透露，縣政府三年前在村頭興建焚燒爐，聘請專人統一收集垃圾燒毀，但一年前突然無故停止營運，「村民最少要步行十五分鐘才到垃圾站，自從無人收集垃圾，村民都將垃圾丟到山坡。」據悉，縣政府財力緊絀才是焚燒爐停運的原因。

但據尋烏縣政府官方網站顯示，尋烏縣發展潛力相當雄厚，該縣因坐擁全球最大的離子吸附型稀土礦區，而被稱為「稀土王國」；每年生產超過六十萬噸蜜桔和臍橙，出口予東南亞和港澳地區，成為江西省名牌產品而有「中國蜜桔之鄉」、「中國臍橙之鄉」等美譽，極有潛力打造成「另一個廣東省」。

尋烏縣副縣長肖蘭接受本報訪問時說，因挖掘稀土會對土壤造成嚴重破壞和污染，農民過量使用化肥種橙樹會污染東江，故中央近年陸續限制有關發展，令縣內經濟收入大幅減少，「目前尋烏縣居住人口接近三十萬，人均年收入少於二千三百元人民幣，收入水平低於國家貧窮線，屬於國家扶貧開發重點鄉鎮。不少農民二代為改善生計，都往東莞、廣東等下游區打工。」

縣政府收入有限

肖蘭承認河流滿布垃圾是當地政府最頭痛的問題，縣政府近年已投入大量資金開設垃圾中轉站，安排清潔工每日定點收集和清理住戶門口和道路的垃圾，惟因財政收入有限及貧窮問題嚴重，即使將成本轉嫁居民，每戶每月收取五至十元處理費，但資金僅足夠保養和更換工具，縣政府仍須補貼大量金錢，令垃圾處理問題難以推展。「目前真的沒有更好的方法去改善河流垃圾，只能單靠教育村民。」

中央近年落實了《生態補償機制》，規定下游受益區每年補貼金額予上游地區，鼓勵上游地區保護河流水質，浙江省、安徽省都被納入試點。據悉，江西省政府每年都有向廣東省政府提出擴大試點的要求，但多年來均無確實回應，對方反而提出「尋烏縣水質須達標，方可取得補貼」的無理要求。

香港環保團體「地球之友」一直關注東江源頭水質問題，該會董事吳方笑薇透露，尋烏縣為保護東江水犧牲大量經濟發展，但香港每年花費逾三十五億元向廣東省政府買水，卻分毫無回饋上游地區。她擬去信人大常委范徐麗泰，盼她代向中央轉達擴大試點至江西省的訊息，又促請港府成立生態信託基金，將部分買水錢補貼上游地區，協助上游居民經濟轉型，長遠改善污染問題。

東江源頭在江西
2012年04月23日(一)
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東江源村雖設有焚燒爐和垃圾處理中心，但村民透露最少已停運一年。

【本報訊】港府每年向廣東省人民政府購入東江水，令不少港人都誤以為東江源於廣東省，但其實江西省尋烏縣才是真正的東江源頭。香港地球之友董事吳方笑薇憶述四年前初次踏足東江源頭時，發覺當地村民為保護東江水潔淨，幾近犧牲所有經濟發展，隨即與尋烏縣政府簽訂十年協議，通過籌辦植樹計劃、考察活動及跨地區交流活動等，改善上游的垃圾及水土流失等問題，長遠冀可爭取廣東省政府落實《生態補償計劃》，協助當地經濟轉型，改善生計。

「我經歷過香港制水，當年無水煮飯、沖涼嘅慘況，簡直一生難忘，下定決心要去東江源頭視察。」吳方笑薇談及當年首次遊歷尋烏縣時，仍難掩內心難過之情，眼淚緩緩滴下。她慨嘆說，中央為保護東江水質，限制縣內發展工業、旅遊、房地產、礦石，即使耕種亦受規範，深怕過度耕作污染東江，村民的犧牲每年為下游城鎮帶來數以十億元計的經濟利益，但從無獲得丁點回報，尋烏縣貧窮程度已達國家級水平：「但最叫人無奈係下游地區完全唔知道村民的付出，到依家都仲喺度嘥緊水。」

植樹計劃保村民生計

為改善東江上游垃圾問題及水土流失情況，地球之友○八年與尋烏縣政府啟動「飲水思源」東江源項目，承諾每年投入一百萬元人民幣，在東江源頭種植防火及保水的樹木。過去三年，地球之友已種植逾三萬棵樹及聘請逾二百名村民，部分村民更獲聘為護林員。擔任護林員三年的謝國友坦言，以前依靠種植水稻維生，每年生產約二十擔稻米，僅夠一家四口維生，擔任護林員後每年可獲五千元收入，生計明顯得到改善，今年更供兒子升讀大學，改寫跨代貧窮的悲慘命運。

Raw Sewage Dumped in China’s Pearl River Delta, Daily Says
By Bloomberg News
Jul 10, 2012 9:57 AM GMT+0800

China’s southern Guangdong province discharged billions of tons of raw sewage last year into the Pearl River Delta that supplies Hong Kong and Macau, the China Daily newspaper reported today.

About 9.5 billion tons of raw sewage, or three-fourths of Guangdong’s output, flowed untreated into local rivers, the newspaper said, citing findings published by the province’s Department of Water Resources. More than half of that amount went into the Pearl River Delta, it said.

The report said that 30 percent of rivers in eastern Guangdong are polluted, threatening the health of people who live along their banks. Guangdong, with a population of 104 million people, has China’s largest economy and is one of the world’s biggest manufacturing centers.

Environmental contamination has fueled social unrest in China as three decades of growth transformed the nation into the world’s second-biggest economy and its largest polluter. President Hu Jintao and other senior officials have repeatedly pledged to reduce pollution.