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THE ENVIRONMENT
1999, waste water from 11 200 people was directed to public sewers. Since the regulation came into force at the end of 1995, wastewater from 36 700 people has been connected to public sewers.
Sewage Charges
All water users who discharge their sewage to public sewers pay a basic sewage charge. In addition, trades and industries whose effluent strength exceeds that of domestic sewage also pay a trade effluent surcharge. The charges cover only operation and maintenance costs and the Government continues to provide funds for capital costs from its capital works reserve fund. Household sewage charge is a modest $1.20 per cubic metre of water consumed with an exemption for the first 12 cubic metres consumed in a four-month billing period. Action is being taken to simplify procedures to reassess the level of the trade effluent surcharge.
Bathing Beaches
Bathing beaches are an important recreational resource. To safeguard the public against swimming in polluted waters, the Government has adopted strict standards for water quality control in bathing beaches. These standards relate to pollution measured as E. coli (bacteria that can indicate the presence of sewage) and were devised after a thorough study of the health risk facing local bathers. The following table shows how beaches were classified in 1998 and 1999. Beaches in the 'good' and 'fair' categories meet the Government's water quality objective for bathing.
Beach
water
quality
Bathing season geometric means of E.coli count per
Minor health
Number of beaches
risk cases
ranking
100 ml of beach water
per 1 000
swimmers
1998
1999
Good
up to 24
Undetectable
16
22
Fair
25 to 180
10 or less
16
13
Poor
181 to 610
11 to 15
8
6
Very Poor
More than 610
More than 15
1
0
Starting in 1998 beach water quality gradings for beaches were made available weekly during that bathing season through the mass media and the EPD's web site.
Livestock Waste Pollution
Indiscriminate disposal of waste from the livestock industry used to be one of the main causes of pollution in streams and rivers in the New Territories. Before the