ENG-2020 — Page 291

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The Environment

Sewage Charges

Under the Sewage Services Ordinance, all water users who discharge their sewage into public sewers pay a sewage charge of $2.92 per cubic metre of water supplied. Twenty-seven trades and industries whose effluent strength exceeds that of domestic sewage 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, whose construction is government-funded.

Water Quality

The water quality of Victoria Harbour has improved markedly under the Harbour Area Treatment Scheme. In 2020, the harbour's overall compliance with the statutory water quality objectives was 90 per cent.

By controlling pollution at source, river water quality has also improved. During the year, 82 per cent of the river monitoring stations were categorised as 'good' or 'excellent, while 7 per cent belonged to the 'bad' or 'very bad' categories.

Bathing Beaches

A well-established methodology is applied to monitor water quality at bathing beaches. The pollution level is measured in terms of Escherichia coli, the bacterium that can indicate the presence of sewage. All gazetted beaches meet the statutory bacteriological water quality objective for bathing.

Beach water quality ranking

Good

Geometric mean of E coli count per 100ml of beach water during bathing season

Up to 24

Cases of minor health risk per 1,000 swimmers

Number of beaches

in 2020

Undetectable

24

Fair

25 to 180

10 or less

17

Poor

181 to 610

11 to 15

0

Very Poor

More than 610

More than 15

0

Gradings of the water quality at all open public beaches are available through the EPD's website, hotline and weekly press releases.

Legislation and Environmental Protection

Ten ordinances address environmental protection: the Waste Disposal Ordinance, Water Pollution Control Ordinance, Air Pollution Control Ordinance, Noise Control Ordinance, Ozone Layer Protection Ordinance, Dumping at Sea Ordinance, Environmental Impact Assessment

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