XN000022-1995-07-28 — Page 26

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Victoria Harbour (Phase Two) Water Control Zone

The control of sewage discharged into the harbour will be extended to cover more areas in September, following the approval of the Governor-in-Council on the declaration of Phase Two of the Victoria Harbour Water Control Zone (WCZ).

This means discharges from Wong Tai Sin, Kowloon City, Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shiu Po, and a small part of Sha Tin will be controlled by a licensing scheme administered by the Environmental Protection Department.

Under the Water Pollution Control (Victoria Harbour (Phase two) Water Control Zone Order gazetted today (Friday), controls on new discharges into the WCZ will take effect from September 1 and licence application for existing discharges should be submitted between that date and April 1 next year.

A government spokesman said according to the estimates, made by the Environmental Protection Department, commercial and industrial discharges account for about 60 per cent and 15 per cent respectively of the total discharges in the proposed Victoria Harbour (Phase Two) WCZ.

He said these had considerable impact on the water quality in the proposed WCZ.

With the declaration of the WCZ, the spokesman said, a significant number of discharges will be controlled at source and water quality in the harbour should improve further.

"In order to meet the discharge requirement specified under the Water Pollution Control Ordinance, commercial and industrial establishments located within the proposed WCZ may need to upgrade their pollution control installations," he said,

It might incur additional costs in operating and maintaining such equipment, but there should be longer term savings arising from a significantly lower trade effluent surcharge which applies when a WCZ was declared, he added.

The Victoria Harbour Water Control Zone is the last of the 10 Water Control Zones established under the Water Pollution Control Ordinance. As it covers the Central Victoria Harbour and has a large number of industrial and commercial discharges, it was proposed to declare it in three phases by next year.