9242/67
Little
24th July, 1967.
The Director,
The East River/Shum Chun Water Supply Project
Administration
T'ong Tau Hau, Kwangtung.
Dear Sir,
Bureau,
As you may know, Hong Kong's rainfall has been much less than usual over the past twelve months. However, thanks to the supplies received under the Agreement between the People's Council of Kwangtung Province and the Hong Kong Authorities on the supply of water to Hong Kong and Kowloon from the East River, we were able to maintain a 24-hour supply until February 1967.
2.
The normal supply of 15,000 million gallons has been augmented by a further 1,800 million gallons as was agreed at the meeting between representatives of the People's Council of Kwang tung Province and of the Hong Kong Water Authority on 10th November 1966.
3.
At that meeting the Hong Kong representative enquired whether it would be possible for the supply to be augmented by a further 6,000 million gallons during the current year, and it was his understanding that this could be arranged, provided that the Hong Kong Water Authority gave a month's notice in advance of each month's requirements.
4.
Accordingly, on 23rd May, 1967, the acting Director of Water Supplies, Hong Kong, wrote to Mr. Tan Kan of the New China News Agency in Hong Kong (our usual channel of communication) confirming that we wished to draw a further 2,000 million gallons in the month beginning 1st July, after we had completed drawing the 16,800 million gallons referred to above. The acting Director wrote again to Mr. Tan on 29th June saying that we should like to draw a further 2,000 million gallons during August in addition to the 2,000 million gallons we had already
24/4/01
all requested. I enclose copies of both letters, to neither of which have
we had a reply.
5.
Because of the lack of rainfall in Hong Kong we had to reduce the supply of water to the residents of Hong Kong to eight hours daily from 1st June and as the drought has continued and we have received no replies to our letters we were compelled to reduce supply to four hours every other day, and subsequently to four hours every four days. We are extremely conscious of the inconvenience and hardship this causes to the residents of Hong Kong, but our present storage position makes it impossible to maintain a daily supply unless our resources can be supplemented by supplies from your Administration.