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1. Overprotection of harbour is evil, says pollution expert

1. Overprotection of harbour is evil, says pollution expert
CHEUNG CHI-FAI, SCMP 28 June 2004

Overprotecting and unnecessarily cleaning up Victoria Harbour would be a waste of taxpayers' money, a pollution expert has warned.

This comes a week after the government's $19.5 billion proposal to clean up the harbour which would involve collecting and pumping the remaining 25 per cent of barely treated sewage to the Stonecutters Island plant for treatment.

The proposal also included spending $11.1 billion to build an extra biological-treatment facility and upgrade the existing one.

Rudolf Wu Shiu-sun, head of biology and chemistry at City University, said biological treatment, which can remove excessive nutrients and organic matter, might be unnecessary.

He warned of unrealistic efforts to "over-clean" sea water, saying the key functions of the harbour were navigation, toilet flushing and cooling the environment.

"Overprotection is as evil as under-protection," said Professor Wu, a member of the disbanded independent panel that reviewed Hong Kong's sewage treatment strategy four years ago.

He said there was insufficient scientific evidence to suggest that removing more nutrients from the water would curb red tides.

Red tides, potentially harmful to marine life, have been rare in the harbour in recent years and the reason they form remains uncertain, Professor Wu said.

"If we blindly do whatever we can do, we might run the risk of throwing billions of dollars down the drain."

He said more water quality monitoring should be conducted after the expansion of chemical treatment of sewage at Stonecutters Island is completed, to determine if further action is needed.

According to environment officials, upgrading the biological treatment will only bring "marginal benefits" to water quality on top of chemical treatment.

For instance, the dissolved oxygen level - a key factor in determining marine life survival - will only increase by 5 per cent by investing $11 billion in the biological treatment facility.

But Ho Kin-chung, a water quality expert from Open University and a member of the Advisory Council on the Environment, said changes were needed.

"Do we have to wait for a wake-up call until a massive red tide that kills thousands of fish occurs?" he asked.

In 1998, a red tide killed millions of fish, costing fish farmers at least $70 million.

Professor Ho said speeding up biological treatment would also help to reduce the effects of worsening water pollution from the Pearl River Delta.

Professor Wu said the money allocated to the project could be better spent helping mainland cities, which pump massive amounts of raw sewage into rivers, solve their own endemic pollution problems.

"With the same investment, we can achieve a much better clean-up regionally than a marginal improvement locally," he said.

Professor Wu said that it might take a decade for the Victoria Harbour to be restored to its original condition.

Four Hong Kong universities are now conducting a joint effort to study how - after the water quality improves - Victoria Harbour will recover from the pollution problems which have plagued it for decades.

"We will find out how and how fast it will recover," Professor Wu said.

He said the harbour was home to "quite a number" of marine species which were less sensitive to pollution.