ENG-1992 — Page 250

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

The office continues to upgrade the level of services available for land and marine ground investigations and geophysical surveys. A number of major ground investigations were undertaken for PADS, including the terminal building at Chek Lap Kok Airport, Lantau Fixed Crossing, West Kowloon Expressway, Western Harbour Development Study, and for studies on the restoration of a number of old landfill sites. Marine investigations continued for assessment of marine sources of sand in Hong Kong waters for use in planned reclamation works.

Fill Management

The territory's fill resources are managed by the Fill Management Committee (FMC) whose Secretariat is housed in the Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO) of the Civil Engineering Department. Around 350 million cubic metres of fill from marine sources and a similar quantity from land sources are needed for new reclamations over the next 15 years. The FMC Secretariat uses a comprehensive computerised database on which the committee makes decisions on reservation, allocation and efficient utilisation of fill resources for all government and major private projects. During 1992, some 115 million cubic metres of marine fill were allocated for the construction of reclamations.

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Water Supplies

Water from China

The supply of water from China is now the major single source of supply for Hong Kong and it is from this source that all future increases in demand will be met. This dates back to 1960 when a scheme was first formulated for receiving a piped supply of 22.7 million cubic metres a year. Today, the annual supply from China stipulated under the agreement has increased to 600 million cubic metres and this will continue to increase in stages to 690 million cubic metres by 1995. Apart from the fixed quantities of supply stipulated in the agreements, there are provisions to purchase additional supplies from China in years of low rainfall in Hong Kong. In view of the very low reservoir storage level in February 1992, an additional supply of 105 million cubic metres was agreed for the period of March 1992 to February 1993. Subsequently, abnormally high rainfall was recorded in March to June. China agreed to defer the delivery of 38 million cubic metres of the additional quantity to the period of March 1993 to February 1994. The concept of seeking a supply from China and steps taken by the Water Supplies Department of Hong Kong to realise such a goal have brought about radical changes to the history of water supplies in the territory.

Following the agreement reached with the Chinese Authority in December 1989 to increase the China water supply up to a maximum of 1 100 million cubic metres per year to cope with the anticipated demands beyond 1994, a conceptual plan was developed for the necessary works to receive and distribute the additional supply. The works will be implemented in stages with the Stage I works to be completed by end-1994. The Stage I works include some 22 kilometres of large-diameter delivery pipes, new pumping stations at Muk Wu, Tai Po Tau, Au Tau and Sai O and uprating of an existing pumping station at Tai Mei Tuk. The first contract commenced work in December 1991. Works in progress included new pumping stations at Muk Wu and Tai Po Tau as well as delivery pipelines between the two pumping stations.