The Director's Statement
![](images/001/mr.jpg)
In the year 2001, the most important sewerage
scheme ever built in Hong Kong, the Harbour Area Treatment
Scheme Stage 1, was fully completed and put into operation.
With the commissioning of the scheme, more than 1.3 million
cubic metres of sewage collected from Tsuen Wan, Tsing Yi,
Kowloon Peninsular, Tseung Kwan O, Chai Wan and Shaukeiwan
are now conveyed through a deep tunnel system to a sophisticated
sewage treatment plant at Stonecutters Island for purification
before disposal to the western side of the Victoria Harbour.
This is a very major step in the Government’s effort to improve
the water quality of the harbour which over the years has
suffered from pollution caused by continual intensive urban
growth around the harbour. Successful completion of the scheme
was by no means an easy task; it had required the dedicated
efforts of the project team more than 7 years of hard work.
During this period, the team have overcome a myriad of engineering
and contractual problems, and have eventually produced a world
class sewerage infrastructure which will serve the community
well for many years to come. Following the completion of Stage
1 and with its beneficial effects on water quality beginning
to show, work has already started on mapping out the future
stages of the scheme aimed at collecting up sewage from the
remaining areas in the northern and western part of Hong Kong
Island and providing treatment to a high standard of all flows
under the scheme before discharging to the sea.
During the year, upgrading the treatment
standard and expanding the capacity of Shek Wu Hui Sewage
Treatment Plant have been completed. The plant is now able
to serve the developments in the Fanling and Sheung Shui New
Town, and produce a very high quality effluent for discharge
to the Ng Tung River. Together with the progressive completion
of works under the Sewerage Master Plan programme, the sewerage
infrastructure of the territory is being continuously extended
and upgraded to protect the environment and provide a high
standard of service to the community.
In the past year, Hong Kong experienced some
of the most severe rainstorms. As a result, several lowlying
areas in the northern part of New Territories have suffered
serious floods. The Ting Ping Shan area near Sheung Shui and
the Ngau Tam Mei area near Yuen Long have been affected most,
although major river training works to vastly improve the
flood protection standard at these locations were already
under construction. For the other areas, they were flooded
either because of problems in the local drainage system or
because they are naturally flood prone areas where improvement
works are still underway or have yet to start. In fact, with
the progressive completion of a large programme of flood prevention
works in the New Territories, the risk of flooding has already
been reduced significantly both in the extent of areas affected
and the severity of the floods experienced in comparison to
the situation in the 90’s. However, a lot of work is still
required to raise the flood protection standard of both the
flood prone areas in the NT and the older urban areas to a
sufficiently high level which is now expected by the community.
A comprehensive strategy to upgrade the drainage infrastructure
has been devised and a programme of improvement works is being
implemented to achieve this objective. As several major flood
prevention projects, including the West Kowloon Drainage Improvement
Scheme, are due for completion over the next three years,
we expect to see further substantial reduction of flood risks
in the near future.
Looking ahead, it is important that we not
only aim to provide the community with a high standard of
service but also deliver the service in the most cost-effective
manner. We must therefore continually review the method of
managing our capital works projects and the mode of operating
and maintaining our extensive facilities to ensure that the
most efficient methods are used. We also need to examine closely
our organisation structure and procedures with the aim of
achieving higher productivity. I am confident that with the
dedication and good team spirit of the staff which have been
so well demonstrated in major undertakings of the department
in the past, we will be able to achieve successful outcomes
once again. I like to take this opportunity to express my
sincere gratitude to all staff of the Drainage Services Department
for their support, hard work and dedication in the past year
without which we would not be able to attain the achievements
recorded in this report.
Raymond T K Cheung
Director of Drainage Services
|