REVIEW
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Government decided to pursue its inquiries into the practica- bility of distilling sea water by nuclear or other power.
Meanwhile, the Consulting Engineers had also been working on a separate appreciation of the Hebe Haven project, but the results of their first survey were disappointing. A fairly large area of agricultural land and some villages would be affected and the Consultants considered that, if this prospect were unacceptable, it would be necessary to keep the water level in the reservoir as low as possible to reduce the area of inundation. They reckoned that the yield from the reservoir on this basis would be only about 15 million gallons a day, but it was nevertheless agreed that they should pursue the investigation since even this quantity could be useful; particularly because it need only be brought a short distance to Kwun Tong, the new industrial suburb already growing on the north-eastern shore of the harbour. Government received the Consultants' Feasibility Report on Hebe Haven in May 1959 and decided after discussions with the District Commissioner, New Territories, that it would be acceptable to raise the top water level inside the reservoir some eight feet above that proposed in the report. The effect of this, of course, would be to inundate more land, but it would also increase the capacity and yield of the reservoir. The Consultants therefore agreed to re-examine the problem and Government received their supplementary report in December 1959. The first report presupposed a top water level inside the reservoir of ten feet above low water mark. The supple- mentary report placed the level six feet higher and presented a surprisingly different picture. Apart from raising the storage capa- city and the yield of the reservoir, this change also tended to simplify the engineering difficulties, and so reduce the estimated cost of the dam and flood control works. Moreover, the yield of water would be substantially increased and the unit cost lowered. Hebe Haven is much shallower than Plover Cove and dredging therefore offered advantages, while the channel linking it to Port Shelter has a narrow entrance and outlet which offers a choice of two sites for a dam. There is also a wide choice of catchment areas and there remains the question of the optimum top water level. All these variables produced a formidable number of alter- native schemes out of which the Consultants selected four for a preliminary study. They advised that there would be considerable