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Update on flushing water from Starling Inlet
into Deep Bay
WWF Hong Kong has already expressed its serious
concerns about the Shenzhen Government's proposal to 'clean up' Deep
Bay by pumping brackish water from Sha Tau Kok Hoi into the polluted
Shenzhen River that flows into the Bay. This is because the proposal
will only dilute the pollutant that enters the Bay from the Shenzhen
River and will not actually tackle the problem at source, that of reducing
the total amount of pollutants being discharged from the catchment
into the River.
As the Shenzhen Government intends to apply for
financial support from the World Bank for this project, WWF Hong Kong
has already written to the World Bank to express our concerns, and
have also met with a representative from the World Bank who visited
Hong Kong in late 2003.
This year, the Shenzhen authorities has contracted
the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) to carry
out an environmental review of the project, to identify the key impacts
that the project may cause to the ecology of Deep Bay. A full EIA will
be carried out in 2005.
As HKUST felt that they did not have the wide
range of people with the necessary experience of the ecology of Deep
Bay to write the environmental review, they asked WWF Hong Kong to
be one of their sub-contractors. Unfortunately, the Shenzhen authorities
only asked the HKUST to focus on the potential impacts of the proposed
project on the endangered Black-faced Spoonbill that winters in Deep
Bay, and the mangroves around the edge of the Bay. There are many other
components of the ecology of Deep Bay that the review will not look
into, such as the potential negative impacts on the hydrology and water
quality of the Bay, the physical structure and area of the mudflat
in the Bay, the diversity and abundance of benthic animals and fish
in the Bay and thus, the many important migratory waterbirds that depend
on those animals for food.
Despite our concerns with the principle of the
project to flush water from Sha Tau Kok Hoi into Shenzhen River, and
narrow scope of the environmental review, WWF Hong Kong feels that
the organization has a positive role to play in the process by:
a) providing the best available data for the
environmental review to show that there is a scientific basis for our
concerns about the project,
b) ensuring that all the areas of concern that the environmental
review omits will be included in the scope of work for the full EIA which
will be undertaken later on, so that these concerns can be fully addressed
during that later process.
During the course of the environmental review,
it is proposed that three workshops will be held to provide information
to, and collect comments from environmental NGOs, relevant experts
and Hong Kong government officials concerning the project and the contents
of the final draft of the environmental review. The first of these
workshops has already been held in March 2004.
WWF Hong Kong feels that being a part of the
team for the Environmental Review, will allow the organization to have
a role in ensuring that the review process will be effective and transparent,
and that the community's concerns are reflected and addressed in the
final report.
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