239
•
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
231
the dam in the Sheng-mun gorge, which, as the senior unofficial member well said, is the corner stone of the second section of the Sheng-mun scheme. I am as anxious as are the unofficial members to see this project pressed rapidly to a successful conclusion, and I can assure the Council that no pains will be spared to obviate any avoidable delay. Mr. Henderson, our waterworks engineer, has just returned to the Colony, and I have already impressed upon him and upon my honourable friend, the Director of Public Works, the neces- sity of preparing plans and estimates for the Sheng-mun gorge reser- voir with the least possible delay. In my opinion, there is no one in the Colony who can do this work better than Mr. Henderson himself. Unfortunately, Mr. Henderson's hands are already very full with the construction of the harbour pipe-line, which he hopes to complete in January next, the construction of the Kowloon byewash reservoir, which is now in progress, and the commencement of the construction of the Aberdeen waterworks scheme, for which tenders have now been received. I am happy to know that Mr. Henderson has the skilled assistance of Mr. Purves, a very experienced water- works engineer, who has just declined an offer of promotion to the Gold Coast, in order to remain in this Colony, where the value of his services to the Hong Kong Government is fully recognized. By their joint efforts, I have no doubt that Mr. Henderson and Mr. Purves will before long place before us detailed plans and estimates for the construction of the second section of the Sheng-mun scheme; and, as I have already told the Council, directly reliable plans and estimates for this scheme are in my possession I shall submit the matter for your consideration and ask for the approval of the Secretary of State.
The senior unofficial member criticized, as I think somewhat unfairly, the delay in constructing the harbour pipe-line, and he pointed out that the unofficial members of this Council had in Novem- ber, 1926, urged the Government to bring the pipe-line across the harbour. In this matter the unofficial members appear to have overlooked the fact that it would have been useless to construct the harbour pipe-line until water could be supplied to it from the Sheng- mun valley, and that even to-day the land pipe-line has not yet reached Kowloon Point. I informed the Council in my address of the 5th September that we still have to construct 3,300 feet of pipe-line at Sham-shui-po and 450 feet across the railway terminus before it will be possible to deliver Sheng-mun water at Kowloon Point. I also explained to the Council on that occasion how work on the Sheng-mun scheme began in 1923 and was steadily continued from that time onwards. It was not until 1926 that the tunnels through Smugglers' Ridge and Golden Hill were completed, and after that we still had to build a reception reservoir in the lower Shek-lai-pui valley and a rapid gravity filtration plant, of which the first section, capable of filtering five million gallons a day, has only recently been completed. There is also still under construction, and not yet com- pleted, a covered reinforced concrete reservoir with a capacity of 11 million gallons adjoining these filters. As I pointed out, expenditure amounting to no less than $2,326,490 had actually been incurred on the development of the Sheng-mun
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.