12.3 The Agriculture and Fisheries Department
Except for foodstuffs which are the responsibilities of the Municipal Services Branch, the Agriculture and Fisheries Department will have a major role in the event of any accident involving a release of radioactivity from the Daya Bay site. These responsibilities will include:-
the sampling, monitoring and control of imported livestock, particularly that from the People's Republic of China, (with assistance from the Royal Observatory), See Chapter 8;
(i)
the sampling and control of local produce (milk, vegetables, etc.);
(ii)
(iii)
S
: for
re
the disposal of contaminated produce, (with assistance from other agencies).
The areas in which monitoring should be concentrated will depend on the assessment made by the Monitoring Assessment Centre of the areas affected by the release and the levels of deposited activity. Even if the wind direction carries the release away from Hong Kong, there will still be a need to monitor imports of produce from any potentially affected area.
The sampling and monitoring of produce/foodstuffs will require considerable manpower, and contingency plans should be drawn up to ensure that resources of trained personnel and equipment are available. Although the requirement for monitoring produce/foodstuffs would not be urgent in the first few hours of an emergency and would not be required during any period when sheltering was implemented, it is possible that operations may be extended over a period of several weeks.
With regard to local produce/foodstuffs Hong Kong should be subdivided into defined districts for which control could be relatively easily implemented, (see comments on the use of maps divided into sectors, in Section 6.4).
In the case of imported produce/foodstuffs a study should be made of the volumes normally sent through each port of entry and the manpower required for the monitoring operation should be defined. In the case of fruit and vegetables, monitoring of consignments in bulk may be readily carried out since unacceptable levels of contamination will be readily detectable with hand-held instruments. Meat may require laboratory testing, see Section 8.3.
Disposal of contaminated produce/foodstuffs may be required and this should be carried out jointly by the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, the Municipal Services Branch and the Environmental Protection Department. Although produce/foodstuffs may be unfit for use for food/unfit for human consumption because of radioactive contamination, it is most unlikely that the level will cause any hazard in disposal by normal routes (incineration and land-fill), although the volumes involved may exacerbate problems of hygiene.
12.4 The Fire Services Department
An accident at the Daya Bay site should not directly involve the Fire Services in operations, nor would there be special requirements on the Ambulance Service within Hong Kong, although there could be a request for them to provide cross-border assistance. However, as described in Chapter 8, the wide distribution of Fire Stations, their use of monitoring equipment, and their communications system means that the Fire Services could make a useful contribution to monitoring the release, particularly in the early stages, by supplying readings of gamma dose rate at regular intervals to the Monitoring and Assessment Centre.
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