TNAG-1858-FCO40-2633-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 238

19 July 1989

一九八九年七月十九日

125

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

香港立法局

is "to provide public sewerage of adequate size to accept all existing and prospective waste water discharges". To achieve this objective, the Government is preparing 21 Sewerage Master Plans (SMPs). Based on the SMPs, new sewer construction works will be undertaken. So far, only two SMPS have been largely completed and other SMPs will be prepared over the next five years.

In the meantime, new water control zones will be declared. Industries in the new water control zones which are still not served by adequate size sewers when the new water control zones are declared will have to treat their waste water to a much more stringent discharge requirement, because the non-availability of an adequate sewage system will force industry to discharge to a stream or the sea. Thus the pollution control cost to be borne by industry will inevitably be higher. To help industry reduce the cost of pollution control, I suggest that new sewers of adequate capacity be constructed prior to the declaration of a new water control zone or prior to controlling industrial waste water from an area which has been declared a water control zone.

On qualified staff, paragraph 3.26 states that "minimum qualification requirements should be established for people who maintain and operate such (treatment) plants". As industrialists will have to assign or employ staff to maintain and operate waste water treatment plants, it will be necessary for industrialists to know the minimum qualification requirements of the staff to be recruited and whether they are available from our tertiary institutions and also to assess the cost implications.

On water pollution, I am pleased to see that the White Paper sets out, at various places in the document, ways of coming to terms with vehicle emission. The Government's proposals as set out in paragraph 4.21 will no doubt assist in curbing smoke emission problems. Here we have special problems with diesel- engined vehicles used by taxis, light buses and goods vehicles. Research has shown that noxious vehicle fumes are considerable health hazard which causes concentrations of nitrogen oxides. I hope that our control standards for motor vehicle emissions in Hong Kong can be drastically improved.

Paragraph 4.16 states that "the only effective way of dealing with the sulphur dioxide problem is to extend the existing regulations to prohibit the use of industrial fuel oil with a sulphur content greater than 0.5% by weight". However, sulphur dioxide is only one of the many air pollutants. The Government should state the amount of reduction of air pollutants obtainable if factories have to use low sulphur content fuel oil.

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