SEP 05 '86 15:03 TIBCOOU) HK GOVT
A round-up of media reports and commentaries
on the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station
28.8.86
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3.9.86
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Thursday, August 28: Acting Senior Legco Unofficial S.L. Chen yesterday wrote to all Unofficials of Legco proposing that the report of the council's nuclear fact-finding missions overseas be made public at the weekend and that an in-house meeting be held on September 3 to discuss the report, the media reported.
According to some press reports, the move to make public the report earlier than planned was that two of the Legco delegates had left with the draft report mid-way through the meeting on Tuesday, resulting in the leak of information to the news media.
Some papers, including the HK Times, Ming Pao and the Centre Daily News, quoted a Legco member as saying that the report to be made public on Saturday would be the final draft as various amendments had been made at the meeting.
Ming Pao reported that some Legco delegates were not happy about the early disclosure of the draft report.
Legco Unofficial Richard Lai was quoted by RTHK and a few papers as saying that there was nothing new in the draft report. He criticised the report for concentrating on the safety aspect of the Daya Bay plant and failing to touch on the economic viability of the project.
A spokesman for the anti-nuclear lobby, Fung Chi-wood, said he disagreed with the report's comment that pressurised water reactors were of a safe design.
He added that it was difficult to ensure that food and water supplies to HK were not contaminated following a nuclear accident. It was also difficult to draw up a contingency plan for HK as it was impossible to store enough food and water to support the six million people in HK for a certain period.
However, Dr Teo Wong Min-yin of HKU said the design of the pressurised water reactors should be safe as half of the world's nuclear plants were using such a reactor.
She suggested the setting up of a monitoring unit at a tributary of the East River which was closest to the Daya Bay plant so that HK could be alerted if radiation level recorded there was higher than
normal.