CO129-509-15 Water supply- development scheme 30-1-1928 - 17-1-1929 — Page 231

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3.

As the Bowen Road Conduit can only carry

approximately seven million gallons per day, and the

consumption in the City rises occasionally in the hot weather

to a weekly average of eleven million gallons per day, a

considerable draw-off is necessary fran Pokfulam Reservoir which is the Colony's only Western District Storage Reservoir. Pokfulam Reservoir is very small (capacity 66 million gallons) and is quickly exhausted at the close of the rainy season, making restriction of supply in the Western District

of the City necessary at an earlier date and for a longer period than in any other District. This disability has long hempered the distribution throughout the City.

4.

After careful investigation it has became

evident that the most satisfactory solution to enable present

demands to be met is to develop the Aberdeen Valley, which runs from Wanchai Gap to Aberdeen Village and is the nearest

valley to the Western District of the City.

5.

This Valley is one of the two areas in which this Goverment alienated its water rights for commercial

purposes at a time when the rapid expansion of the Colony's

population was not foreseen, and at present the Tai Shing Paper Mills Company holds certain water rights here under lease, and has a reservoir with a capacity of ninety-two

million gallons from which their supply is drawn, the

Hong Kong Goverment under the lease having reserved to itself certain water rights, principally for the purpose of

safeguarding the supply to Aberdeen Village. Despite some

restrictive stipulations in this lease, the Law Officers of

this Government are of the opinion that, if the question of

the Company's rights under the lease were taken to the

Courts, it would be held that before Government could impound

water