ENG-2000 — Page 344

THE ENVIRONMENT

Outlying Islands. These were followed by the reviews for North District and Tolo Area and Hong Kong Island that commenced in March and June 2000 respectively. These reviews aim to check the adequacy of the plans and to identify additional sewerage infrastructure to meet future housing needs.

Sewer connections to individual properties are still in progress. Improvements in several parts of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories are well under way. Under the Water Pollution Control (Sewerage) Regulation, the EPD may require house owners to connect their wastewater to new public sewers. In 2000, wastewater from 85 000 people was directed to public sewers. Since the regulation came into force at the end of 1995, wastewater from 45 200 people has been connected to public sewers.

Sewage Charges

All water users who discharge their sewage to public sewers pay a basic sewage charge. In addition, trades and industries whose effluent strength exceeds that of domestic sewage also pay a trade effluent surcharge. The charges cover only operation and maintenance costs and the Government continues to provide funds for capital costs from its Capital Works Reserve Fund. Household sewage charge is a modest $1.20 per cubic metre of water consumed with an exemption for the first 12 cubic metres consumed in a four-month billing period. Action is being taken to simplify procedures to reassess the level of the trade effluent surcharge.

Bathing Beaches

Bathing beaches are an important recreational resource. To safeguard the public against swimming in polluted waters, the Government has adopted strict standards for water quality control in bathing beaches. These standards relate to pollution measured as E. coli (the bacteria that can indicate the presence of sewage) and were devised after a thorough study of the health risk facing local bathers. The following table shows how beaches were classified in 1999 and 2000. Beaches in the 'good' and 'fair' categories meet the Government's water quality objective for bathing.

Beach

water

quality

Bathing season geometric means of E.coli count per

Minor health

Number of beaches

risk cases

ranking

100 ml of beach water

per 1 000

swimmers

1999

2000

Good

up to 24

Undetectable

22

21

Fair

25 to 180

10 or less

13

14

Poor

181 to 610

11 to 15

6

6

Very Poor

More than 610

More than 15

0

0

288