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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
It's not normally in my nature to say it but I do have every right to stand here and tell you 'I told you so', and am saying it to give credibility to the rest of what I am going to say to you today.
Three years ago when I was Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution which coincidentally (?) was soon after abolished, I pushed Government very hard to allow that Committee and EPCOM to investigate the plans for building a nuclear power station at Daya Bay. I also warned at the time that the greatest danger for Hong Kong would be the fact that in a Communist political system management has a strong motive to hide any mistakes they make and that therefore Hong Kong would not be informed of any possible accident until it was too late so that it was absolutely essential we put in a first-class monitoring system and that baseline monitoring should start then and there (to the best of my knowledge it hasn't started yet!). I also, at my expense, made several trips overseas to investigate nuclear power problems elsewhere and, in fact, was the first one to bring back information regarding evacuation procedures, notification of foreign countries etc. from the largest collection of Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR's) in the world in Northern France at Gravelines, which is only 50 km from Dover, 15 km from Calais, 75 km from Lille, and 15 km from Dunkirk, all large population centres and 40 km from the Belgian border. I passed all this information to the then Secretary of Economic Services who, in Hong Kong Governmental logic, was in charge then and now of all things concerning nuclear power, with the Secretary of Health and Welfare barely getting a look-in. And with my handing this over I advocated a study of the feasibility of a full-scale evacuation plan for Hong Kong's population. Whether my advice on this was ever taken I do not know. I am on record, both in public and with the Hong Kong Government in Minutes of EPCOM and of the Special Air Pollution Committee I used to chair, of saying that we and China need nuclear power but that this Daya Bay power station will be sited wrongly, it should be west of Hong Kong and not east, that it is too close to Hong Kong, that the greatest problem we are going to have will be caused by the way Communist management thinks, i.e. because they are scared of being sent to a concentration camp when they get it wrong, they will not even inform their own superior when something goes wrong. Therefore, our monitoring must be very much better than anyone would normally expect it to be to give us warning of an accident which might not be notified to us. I criticized then and I criticize now the quite insufficient baseline monitoring, which should have started three years ago and has, to the best of my knowledge, not started yet and when it will start will not give us the sort of readings that we need in order to make fair judgements as to what is going on 20 kilometers over the border.
At the time I circulated my warnings to all and sundry, including EXCO and LEGCO members. I was told by many not to rock the boat because the Daya Bay concept was an important bargaining chip in the then on-going negotiations between Beijing and London to try and resolve the 1997 problem. I felt very strongly that this was the wrong approach and am glad to note that some of the same people who told me then that I had to live with political realities and that I was exaggerating the safety risks of a PWR nuclear reactor are now showing signs of changing their minds. Sad to say it wasn't I who persuaded them but a nuclear catastrophe. And now, of course, in the usual way of the converted they are busy trying to throw out the baby with the bath water.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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A year later, in January of 1984, I made a speech in the Urban Council and among other things I said then:
'I can't help but feel that Government is sleepwalking into the nuclear age. Everything I have been told so far about Government's attitude to safety connected with this power station seems to indicate that they feel this can be all left to the Chinese authorities (who themselves have no experience with nuclear power for peaceful purposes) and the power station authorities here who are no doubt employing consultants to help them understand the risks involved, and that therefore everything will be just fine on the day.
Before I go on, let me make my own position clear. Wearing my hat as Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution, I am convinced that we cannot afford to add another gram of air pollution to our already very polluted air. We cannot under any circumstances afford another coal or oil-fired power station just as we cannot afford another incinerator. You just have to look out of the windows of this building to see how temperature inversions give us almost a Los Angeles look. So that assuming all the forecasts for power requirements are correct and we do need more electric power, then we can only get this power from China because we have run out of space to produce it ourselves. And if China decides that they also have enough pollution, and they certainly do have, then they are quite justified in producing the extra power both they and we need by nuclear power. I am not against a nuclear power station. What worries me is how we in Hong Kong are going to cope with the possible effects of such a nuclear power station. As far as I can ascertain, the Hong Kong Government is not making any proper contingency plans.
Let me therefore ask the Government some relevant questions:
1.
2.
3.
Is Government satisfied that their present background radiation monitoring is fully sufficient? And if not, will they make sufficient funds available immediately to purchase the numbers and types of instruments necessary to give them internationally accepted standards of monitoring?
Has Government made a proper dispersion study which, because of our many micro-climates may be extremely complicated, to indicate in case of an accident where most of the radioactive fallout will accumulate?
What plans have they made to check food and water coming in from China in case of contamination across the border of food and water by a minor accident at Daya Bay?