phase of the treatment works at Sha Tin.
Actual construction work under Stage II is expected to start in 1963 and to take several years to complete. This part of the scheme will cost an estimated $335,000,000.
Much of the works under Stage I are already under construction. They comprise the Tai Po Tau intake and pumping station, tunnels and intakes between Tai Po and Sha Tin, the Lower Shing Mun Dam, the Lion Rock Tunnel and the first part of the treatment works at Sha Tin.
Other works include a number of service reservoirs on the south side of the Kowloon Foothills and distri bution pipelines in various parts of Kowloon and Hong Kong, including eventually a third cross-harbour pipeline.
The reservoir at Plover Cove, when enclosed, will form the Colony's primary reservoir for the bulk stor- age of untreated fresh water.
It will be enclosed by a dam of earth and rock about 1 miles in length extending from the peninsula near the village of Tai Mei Tuk to Harbour Island (Sam Mun Tsai). The remaining gaps will be blocked by subsidiary dams between Harbour Island, Tung Tau Chau and the mainland and a spillway on Tung Tau Chau.
A vast and complicated network of installations has been devised by the engineers to bring the water into the urban areas, This in itself will represent great engineering achieve. ment.
at
From the pumping station Plover Cove, the water will be con- veyed through tunnels to Tai Po Tau from where it will be pumped, again through tunnels, to the treatment works at Sha Tin.
The supply to the treatment works will be supplemented by excess water from the various stream intakes on route and, on occasions, from the Lower Shing Mun flood-balancing reservoir. From Sha Tin the treated water supply will be pumped through the Lion Rock Tunnel to the service reservoirs above Kowloon.
The tunnel between Plover Cove and Sha Tin has been designed so that water can flow in either direction
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as required to Plover Cove Re- servoir for storage or from Plover Cove to Sha Tin for treatment and thence to supply in Kowloon.
The pumping station at Tai Po Tau will be fed, not only from Plover Cove Reservoir, but from the Tai Po River and from the river at Tau Pass which itself will occasional- ly be supplemented by supplies from northern sources.
To enable water to be pumped from the Tai Po River, a low inflat- able dam of neoprene-coated nylon will be installed across the river. This dam will deflate automatically when floods of pre-determined sever ity occur.
This type of dam is a very novel conventional idea. It replaces a concrete structure and also expensive flood gates which would otherwise have to be installed and be manually operated. Dams of this type have recently been constructed in the U.S.A. and found to function satis factorily.
The Lower Shing Mun Reservoir will have a storage capacity of 900 million gallons of water. It will receive water from its own small direct catchment area, water from the tunnels which is not by-passed direct ly to the Sha Tin treatment works and water which overflows from Jubilee Reservoir. (Cont. on page 110)
This sketch shows Plover Cove, which is about the size of Kowloon Peninsula, with the proposed dam (edged in black) across the inlet, and the line of tunnels, which will carry water from the freshwater lake to the treatment works at Sha Tin and then through Lion Rock tunnel to Kowloon
TAI PO tau PUMPINGO STATION
TUNNEL
PUMPING! STATION
DAM
PLOVER COVE RESERVOIR
TAI PO
TOLO HARBOUR
TUNNEL
LOWER SHING MUN DAM
SHA TIN
TREATMENT WORKS
LION ROCK
TUNNEL
RESERVOIRS
KOWLOON
KAI TAK
3 MILES
PORT SHELTER
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER -
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VOLUME 17, NUMBER 5
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