THE ENVIRONMENT
In many parts of the New Territories, the rivers and streams are still experiencing severe pollution, with some of the streams being no better than open sewers. This pollution poses a serious health risk to the public when it passes through towns. With effective legislative controls, significant improvements in water quality have been achieved and maintained in some rivers such as the Mui Wo River and Tai Po Kau Stream.
The cause of much of this pollution is the territory's livestock industry. Before 1987, the total amount of waste produced annually by about 700 000 pigs and 12 million poultry was 840 000 tonnes. This was equivalent to the pollution load of the raw sewage from a population of over two million people. Most of it ended up in Hong Kong's small streams and rivers and eventually, the sea. Following the amendment of the Waste Disposal Ordinance in April 1994, more effective control has been effected through the expansion of prohibition areas, creation of restriction areas and licensing control over livestock keeping. By the end of 1994, this load had been reduced to 280 000 tonnes.
In the open sea, away from the urbanised coast, confined bays and marine works areas, water quality is good. However, dredging and dumping as part of the process of land formation and construction continued to affect the marine environment. Extensive areas of muddy water were visible at times, and some fishermen complained of reduced catches. Illegal dumping and short dumping of spoil (outside the designated areas) damage marine life.
Bathing beaches are an important recreational resource. There was an obvious improve- ment in their water quality in the late 1980s but close monitoring indicates a gradual decline in recent years. This is due to the increasing population, especially in areas such as Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan districts where the local sewerage infrastructure is inadequate. New sewerage is planned for installation in these areas within the next five or six years.
To safeguard the public against swimming in polluted waters, the Environmental Protection Department has adopted strict E. coli (a bacterium) standards for water quality control in bathing beaches. These standards relate to the degree of faecal pollution and were devised by the department after a very thorough study of the health risk that local bathers face. The following table shows how beaches were classified in 1993 and 1994.
Annual beach rank
Bathing season geometric mean of E. coli count per 100mL of beach water
Health risk cases per 1 000 swimmers
Number of beaches
1993
1994
Good
up to 24
Undetectable
22
17
Fair
25 to 180
10 or less
19
23
Poor
181 to 610
11 to 15
12
13
Very poor
More than 610
More than 15
3
3
Unfortunately, complaints occur even at beaches that have very low E. coli grading, usually because of floating refuse and occasionally because of slime caused by algae.
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