ENG-2012 — Page 295

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The Environment

quality objectives. Views from the public and stakeholders on the issues to be addressed and the review approaches were sought in 2009 and a second stage public engagement will be held after any proposed changes to the water quality objectives are formulated.

Sewage Treatment and Disposal

At present, the public sewerage system serves 93 per cent of the population and collects about 2.8 million cubic metres of waste water every day. About 70 per cent of the collected sewage receives chemical or higher levels of treatment before being discharged.

HATS Stage 1 collects sewage from the urban areas of Kowloon, Tsuen Wan, Kwai Tsing, Tseung Kwan O and the north-eastern part of Hong Kong Island and transports it through a network of deep tunnels to Stonecutters Island for treatment. HATS Stage 2A involves extending the deep tunnel system to take the untreated sewage from the remaining parts of Hong Kong Island to the Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works, which will be expanded to provide centralised chemical treatment to sewage from the entire HATS catchment. HATS Stage 2A works commenced in 2009 and the project is targeted for commissioning in 2014. Since commissioning in 2010, the Advance Disinfection Facilities have improved water quality in the Western Harbour and at Tsuen Wan beaches. Together with the completion of a local sewerage network and progressive connection to local residents' houses in the vicinity of the Tsuen Wan beaches, this has improved the waters at seven closed beaches so that they now comply with the Water Quality Objective for bathing beaches and are suitable for bathing. The Government is studying the measures needed to further improve the water quality of the harbour.

Details of HATS are available on the 'A Clean Harbour for Hong Kong' website, www. cleanharbour.gov.hk.

Apart from HATS, the Government has spent a further $23 billion on other sewerage schemes. since 1991 and will spend another $16 billion on schemes over the next five years, including sewerage for rural villages. The Water Pollution Control (Sewerage) Regulation empowers the EPD to direct house owners to connect their waste water pipes to new public sewers and since the regulation came into force in 1995, about 6,700 village houses have made connections to the public sewers.

Sewage Charges

All water users who discharge their sewage into public sewers have to pay a basic sewage charge in accordance with the Sewage Services Ordinance. Also, 27 trades and industries whose effluent strength exceeds that of domestic sewage have to pay a trade effluent surcharge reflecting the additional cost of treating their stronger effluent. These charges are used to recover the operation and maintenance costs of sewage collection, treatment, and disposal facilities, while the Government provides funds for construction.

In support of the polluter-pays principle, since 2007 the Government has initiated a gradual increase in the sewage charge for handling domestic waste water over a 10-year time frame. The average bill for domestic accounts will rise from the 2007 level of $11 per month to $27 per month over a period of 10 years.

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