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Pearl River Delta

Easterly wind spares Hong Kong from Pearl River Delta smog

City’s air to remain relatively clean despite heavy pollution in nearby Foshan, Shenzhen and Guangzhou

The severe smog enveloping the Pearl River Delta will not affect Hong Kong for now thanks to the favourable wind direction, a representative from an environmental group said.

Despite high concentrations of harmful pollutants recently recorded in nearby Foshan, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, which saw the air quality index hit the hazardous 300 benchmark in some areas, Hong Kong has been able to enjoy a breath of fresh air because the easterly wind currently blowing through the city does not pass through the smoggy areas.

But a government official said regional efforts were needed to maintain healthy air quality in the city as New Territories West was vulnerable to pollutants produced in the adjacent mainland industrial zone.

“We don’t exclude the possibility that the smog might be blown into Hong Kong under favourable conditions,” Clean Air Network campaign officer Winnie Tse Wing-lam said during a radio programme on Friday. “But will Hong Kong turn into a smoggy city like Foshan? I don’t think so.”

Tse said the city will continue to be controlled by the easterly wind in the next couple of weeks, while the severe smog mainly affects cities located to the northwest of Hong Kong.

This means the air brought to the city will be relatively fresh.

Speaking on the same radio programme, Mok Wai-chuen, assistant director of air policy at the government’s environmental protection department, said cooperation with mainland cities in the Pearl River Delta was necessary to improve the air quality in Hong Kong.

He said the government had been working with the Guangdong provincial government to set emission reduction targets, and both sides will review the results in the first quarter of this year.

Lower concentrations of harmful pollutants were recorded last year, including the tiny particulates that can penetrate deep into the lungs, but roadside-dominant nitrogen dioxide remains a headache for the city, with most figures failing annual air quality targets, according to preliminary air quality data for 2016 released by the department.

However, much of the decline was due to wetter, windier weather in what are traditionally two of the most polluted months, January and October, according to Dr Cheng Luk-ki, head of scientific research and conservation at Green Power.

Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/2059905/easterly-wind-spares-hong-kong-pearl-river-delta

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon opens low-carbon innovation hub in Hong Kong

http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1845131/scotlands-first-minister-sturgeon-opens-hong-kong-low-carbon

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon attended a signing ceremony between Chinese health companies and Scottish universities in Shanghai on Wednesday before making the trip to Hong Kong.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon officially launched a centre in Hong Kong on Thursday that is partnering with a Scottish university to promote the adoption of low carbon and sustainable technologies in the city and the Pearl River Delta, which extends into south China’s Guangdong province.

The centre is being run in partnership with the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (ECCI), part of the University of Edinburgh. This brings together governments, businesses and universities to develop and implement low carbon innovations for sustainable economic development.

“This is the first education institution in the world to establish a low-carbon research and innovation centre in another country and I am delighted that it is a Scottish university that is leading the way and setting the standard,” said Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party leader and highest-ranking politician in Scotland.

“Like the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, the University of Edinburgh has a world-class reputation and I’m confident that this relationship will help provide Scottish companies with a route into Hong Kong and, through its strong links with China, act as a gateway into China.”

The centre is being hosted by the HKSTP in a partnership that is also designed to advance technologies in areas such as “smart cities”, which eye greater digital connectivity.

Their goals include working to “commercialise environmentally friendly innovations, information and communications technology and material, and precision engineering,” said Andrew Young, chief commercial officer of the company running the park.

“China produces 26 to 27 per cent of the world’s carbon, and Hong Kong is a key gateway, and an important centre in its own right,” said Ed Craig, deputy director of the centre.

Almost 20 Scottish businesses have been brought over to Hong Kong in the past three months. They focus on areas like air pollution and the environment. Six more are due to arrive soon under the new agreement.

Hong Kong businesses and researchers will be invited to work with the centre in Edinburgh, which also has partnerships with Edinburgh Napier University and Heriot Watt University, the centre said.

The centre has helped thousands of small companies in Scotland to reduce their carbon footprint and create profit from waste, Craig said.

This relates to the concept of a circular economy, which aims to phase out waste and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, among other changes.

Craig used the example of Celtic Renewables, which has worked with the centre to produce bio fuels using two waste products from Scotland’s whisky industry that were previously dumped in the sea or on land.

“They’re looking at the waste product and saying we can make a second or a third income from [it], which also makes our [main] product much more environmentally sustainable and financially sustainable,” he said.

Craig identified Hong Kong’s transport system, building standards and energy consumption as ripe for innovation.

Hong Kong uses 4,200 buses made by Scottish company Alexander Dennis, which carry about 4 million passengers every day, according to its website.

Craig described these as “relatively low carbon” but said improvements can be made as the company is already starting to introduce hydrogen buses in Scotland.

Hong Kong’s proposed third runway would only reach a quarter of its potential due to airspace conflict: academics

23 Jan 2015

Samuel Chan

The proposed HK$136 billion third runway at Chek Lap Kok would only raise the airport’s efficiency by a quarter of normal expectations due to unresolved airspace conflict with neighbouring cities, concern groups and academics said yesterday.

“It equals pouring in over HK$100 billion for a quarter of a runway,” said Lam Chiu-ying, adjunct professor of geography and resource management at Chinese University.

Lam is one of four conveners of the newly established People’s Aviation Watch – a body set up to monitor the third runway project – which includes Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups, as well as academics from various disciplines.

The Airport Authority’s projection that handling capacity would increase from the current 68 flights per hour to 102 with the completion of the runway assumes Shenzhen airport would concede some of its existing airspace to Hong Kong, he said.

But the airspace conflict is the reason the current dual-runway system isn’t operating at its full capacity of 86 flights per hour, Lam said.

“The Airport Authority’s estimate is based on what they have yet to achieve,” he said.

Under the authority’s plan, aircraft using the third runway would overlap with existing flight paths of planes using Shenzhen Baoan International Airport at two points – over Jinxing Bay in Zhuhai, and over the Pearl River Delta.

“The central government may have to intervene if the Hong Kong and Shenzhen authorities fail to reach a consensus,” said Melonie Chau Yuet-cheung of Friends of the Earth.

In November last year, the government approved the environmental impact assessment for the runway despite strong opposition from conservationists.

The most expensive construction project since the handover – with a cost estimate of HK$136 billion in 2011 – still needs approval from the Executive Council on its design and funding.

The Airport Authority did not address the conflict issue directly, but said there were plans to “improve the management of airspace in the Pearl River Delta”.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1689345/hong-kongs-proposed-third-runway-would-only-reach-quarter-its

Difficult to get airspace concession

SCMP Letters to Editor

During the presentation the Airport Authority was giving to the Town Planning Board on April 10, Wilson Fung Wing-yip, the authority’s executive director of corporate development, broached a future master plan being drafted wherein a study would be carried out into the need for a fourth runway or even a replacement airport.

Better late than never, this planning work.

But it is hoped the logistics of the planning work will not be “cart before the horse” this time, so that the need for a fourth runway or otherwise will be identified before resources are committed to add the third runway to Chek Lap Kok. For it is patently obvious that there is no possibility of adding a fourth runway at Chek Lap Kok.

The crux of the “third runway at Chek Lap Kok” airspace cloud we’re under is simply whether the mainland authorities had given the specific blessing for traffic from the third runway to turn north so that at least two of the three runways can be operated independent of each other, to enable a total capacity of 102 movements to be achieved.

The rest is empty talk. This is by no means an easy concession to grant, considering the criss-crossing between each other’s traffic, as can be seen on the diagram attached to the report “Airspace conflict could hold back third runway” (January 23).

If it was easy, it would have been granted for traffic from the present north runway to turn north, to enable the present two runways to operate independent of each other, achieving far more than the 68 movements an hour projected for later this year.

The quest for this concession is what started the umpteen tripartite meetings, starting before 1997.

Peter Lok, Chai Wan

http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1772131/letters-editor-april-21-2015

Sky’s near the limit above Hong Kong’s airport as holding times increase

29 March 2015

Danny Lee

Less than a mile out from the north runway at Chek Lap Kok on March 5, strong and squally winds start to rattle Hong Kong Airlines flight 253 from Taipei.

With the sea only 150 metres below, the landing gear deployed and touchdown near, the aircraft’s engines power up, sending the plane skyward. The landing is aborted.

The pilot calmly tells passengers: “We do not have the extra fuel to re-route a second approach for landing into Hong Kong. And as such, I have decided, for our safety, we will be diverting to Shenzhen for refuelling.”

The flight was one of a dozen jets diverted that day due to a phenomenon known as wind shear. Scientists at the Observatory said the event was the worst to hit the airport since records began in 2011. Lantau is notorious for the phenomenon of rapid changes in windspeed and direction near the ground.

Passengers on Flight 253 reported that the pilot said the winds “were very, very strong”, and as such it “wasn’t safe” to make the landing.

While the weather situation was unusual, the events of March 5 also reflect an everyday problem – namely the congested skies above Chek Lap Kok.

And it is a problem that needs a solution after the Executive Council approved the Airport Authority’s HK$141.5 billion plan for a third runway that will expand the airport’s capacity.

Flight 253 was a case in point. Like other flights, it would have entered a holding pattern, a kind of highway in the skies where planes are kept apart, before the aircraft are manoeuvred, one by one, into the landing queue.

But Flight 253 was in a holding queue of 12 planes. By the time it attempted to land, it lacked the 40 minutes of extra fuel it required to “go around” and attempt another landing in Hong Kong without falling foul of the rules on minimum fuel levels. The Civil Aviation Department said the minimum fuel levels were set based on UN aviation safety rules.

Landing with good weather in Shenzhen, the aircraft and passengers waited on the tarmac for four hours before the plane was refuelled and returned to Hong Kong.

The other 11 planes also diverted to Shenzhen and Macau, while 17 landed safely at Chek Lap Kok at the second attempt.

The longer holding times – which can now stretch up to 15 minutes, according to pilots’ unions – reflect how busy Chek Lap Kok is getting.

For most of the day, the airport handles its maximum 65 flights per hour – a figure that increases to 67 per hour from tomorrow and 68 from October, the highest it can ever go with only two runways.

With 391,000 flights handled last year, the maximum capacity under a two-runway configuration, 420,000 arrivals and departures per year, is not far away.

The problem is made worse by a lack of cooperation over airspace in the Pearl River Delta, which leaves aircraft from Hong Kong unable to enter the mainland until they reach a minimum height of 4,785 metres.

Last week Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the central government would help to resolve airspace integration issues with Hong Kong and Macau by 2020, which could see an integration of airspace. But details of how such integration will work remain sketchy.

Airport Authority chief executive Fred Lam Tin-fuk said aviation officials and their mainland counterparts had conducted a simulation study based on a 2007 directional plan, which he said was “technically feasible”. But he shared no further details.

Pilot unions warn that unless the airspace question is resolved, more diversions are likely.

The Hong Kong Airline Pilots Association says the airport and airspace saturation problem is “further complicated” by the need to accommodate unplanned go-arounds like those on March 5.

“These additional delays can compromise planned arrival fuel [predictions] and at some point inbound aircraft will make the call whether to continue holding or to divert,” said Darryl Soligo, president of the association, which represents pilots at Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express.

He said saturation in the aviation system left little capacity to deal with even the occasional wrinkle. But he warned that “pouring pavement in Hong Kong by way of a third runway is not a solution in itself”.

Airspace rationalisation is an “equally important component” and if airspace negotiations are not successful, then the Airport Authority will lose the support of a key ally – pilots.

Congestion means pilots might have to divert to airports further afield even before attempting to land at Chek Lap Kok, experts say.

Brian Legge, a wind shear expert and member of the association’s technical and safety committee, said: “Without resolving the air traffic services problems first, the result will likely be more ground delays, increased aircraft holding, and a risk of overloading air traffic controllers during periods of high volume coupled with weather or operational related challenges.”

According to the union, Cathay Pacific has acknowledged in recent years that its short-haul regional flights needed extra fuel to accommodate the time spent holding.

The number of diversions has steadily risen since 2000 – when 68 flights had to abort landing attempts.

Last year 335 aircraft had to abort landings – the second highest figure ever recorded at the airport. Some 233 were caused by weather. The rest were classified as doing so for operational reasons.

Management sources at Hong Kong Airlines said overcrowding had become “challenging” to manage. But its spokesman expressed support for a third runway, saying: “We are confident that the [Airport] Authority will make the most adequate arrangement after taking different parties’ views into consideration.”

But while the third runway is touted as the only way to increase capacity, problems do remain,

Besides airspace management, the Civil Aviation Department’s consultant on third runway matters, Britain’s National Air Traffic Service, has identified problems with escape routes – the routes that planes take after aborting landings.

And concerns remain about the cost of the runway, after a series of massive public works projects bust their budgets amid long delays. Most notoriously, the high-speed railway to Guangzhou has been pushed back at least two years to 2017, with costs rising to at least HK$71.5 billion from HK$65 billion.

One key factor in the delays and cost overruns has been a shortage of construction workers, with the industry warning it will be short of 10,000 workers within four years. The shortage and the demand from elsewhere as the government looks to stimulate public and private house building have cast doubts on the target of having the runway in place by 2023.

There is also environmental concern as the runway needs reclamation on a massive scale, further impingeing on the habitat of the endangered Chinese white dolphin.

The funding plan – under which the Airport Authority will pay for the work without seeking extra cash from the government – is also controversial. Some lawmakers are fuming because they will not get to scrutinise the budget plans, despite the fact that the authority is government owned and will stop paying dividends to the public purse.

And part of the funding will have to come from airport users including passengers, who will pay a HK$180 per person departure fee.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair have expressed strong support for the third runway, but have cried foul over the funding arrangement, under which they would pay higher landing and parking fees.

March 5

Air New Zealand
5.50am, NZ87 from Auckland, two landing attempts before diverting to Macau

Cathay Pacific
6.10am, CX829 from Toronto, aborted landing once and diverted to Shenzhen
* Cathay flights from Delhi, Taipei and Nagoya landed in Hong Kong on second attempt

China Southern Airlines
9.47am, CZ311 from Jieyang , diverted back to Jieyang

Dragonair
5.55am, KA932 from Manila, performed two unsuccessful landing attempts before diverting to Macau
10.07am, KA857 from Shanghai, aborted landing and diverted to Shenzhen
* Jets from Yangon, Taichung, Beijing, Zhengzhou and Shanghai aborted landings before landing in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Airlines
6am, HX774 from Bangkok, aborted landing once and diverted to Macau
6.15am, HX708 from Denpasar (Bali), aborted landing once and diverted to Macau
7.21am, HX9269 from Taipei, aborted landing once and diverted to Macau
9.53am, HX453 from Chengdu , aborted landing once and diverted to Shenzhen
2.15pm, HX253 from Taipei, aborted landing once and diverted to Shenzhen
*Three more HK Airlines jets from Macau, Taipei and Naha, Okinawa aborted landings before landing in Hong Kong

Tiger Airways
9.52am, TR2062 from Singapore, aborted landing and diverted to Shenzhen
12.03pm, TR2052 from Singapore, performed two unsuccessful landing attempts before diverting to Shenzhen

* Taiwan’s China Airlines had two go-arounds. United Airlines, Russia’s S7 Airlines, Philippine Airlines and Jetstar Asia planes aborted landings before landing in Hong Kong

Source: Flightradar24

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1749835/skys-near-limit-above-chek-lap-kok

Third Runway Maths: The Most Expensive in the World?

Peter Woo of FrontlineTechWorkers

Hong Kong’s third runway is now reported to be a HK$140B (billion) project. How absurd is this? Let’s compare:

Beijing Capital International Airport – Market Capital HK$32.5B

Unlike Hong Kong International Airport, Beijing Capital International Airport is publicly listed, actually on Hong Kong Stock Exchange (0694.hk). With HK$140B, we can buy out Beijing’s airport 4 times.
London Heathrow Airport – Valued at HK$60B

There was a 8.65% stake sale of the Heathrow Airport Holdings for GBP392M (million)

in 2013. That would imply a full stake valuation of the airport to be around GBP4.5B (392M / .0865). Even by taking the peak of GDP/HK$ rate in 2013 at around HK$13 (currently HK$11.37), it would only be HK$60B, i.e. we can buy out the Heathrow Airport twice.
Berlin Airport New Runway – HK$32B

Just a few months ago, the scandal-dogged Berlin Airport asked for EUR 3.2B to build a new runway. That would translate to HK$32B, using EUR/HK$ exchange at that time (around HK$10, currently HK$8.23). Despite of potential construction complications due to our unique terrain and environmental consideration, HK$140B allow us building 4 new runways for Berlin. The Germans must envy us for such luxury.
Hong Kong International Airport (The Rose Garden Project) – HK$160B

The Hong Kong International Airport was a US$20B project at that time but note that it was a project comprised 10 core projects including the airport itself (with 2 runways), Tsing Ma Bridge, Western Harbour Crossing, North Lantau Expressway, Route 3 – Kwai Chung and Tsing Yi Sections, West Kowloon Highway, Land Reclamation in West Kowloon, Central Reclamation Phase I, and Phase I of North Lantau New Town. It was practically rebuilding part of HK. Can you imagine an additional runway costs almost the same? Even with inflation adjusted dollar, it doesn’t make sense.

For reference, our current airport has a fixed asset size of around HK$52B. With the miscellaneous supplemental projects built after the initial cutover of the airport, and depreciation/appreciation applied over the years, HK$52B may not exactly represent the proportion of the airport within the Rose Garden total. However, it gives you a sense of how much an airport (including 2 runways) should cost.

It’s going to be privately funded – does it concern me?

Yes, for one thing, whatever debt raised by the Airport Authority will be guaranteed by the Hong Kong government. If the project doesn’t pay back, Hong Kong taxpayers will have to subsidize it later.

Immediately, the Airport Authority is considering the suspension of the around HK$5B/year dividend payment to the Hong Kong government. Local residents ought prepare to shoulder up more taxes to fill in the HK$5B hole, and more directly, to pay more airport tax upcoming.

With the congestion of the two runways now, we have little objection to building a third runway, if the environment is taken into account. However, we should not be robbed. HK$140B is not only unreasonable, but downright robbery by vested interests. Just wonder, is this what the HK$50M paid to CY Leung is for? Or is this another “gift” to Chinese construction companies that will be ultimately given a piece of the pie, and come back later to claim their “love” for Hong Kong without mentioning how much they’ve earned during the process? HongKongers have already been overpaying for water. Now, they want more.

One of our group members foresees that we will end up being made to buy airspace from China in order to fully utilise the third runway. Water and construction are just the beginning. Prepare to be asked for showing more gratitude to the motherland.

FrontlineTechWorkers is formed by a group of IT practitioners with the aim to consolidate voices from IT workers on policy discussion in Hong Kong.

http://hongwrong.com/third-runway/

Plasma gasification to proceed in Zhuhai / Foster Wheeler (plasma plant builders in Teesside UK/Westinghouse Plasma) involved

Plasma plant in Zhuhai

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge: Will the benefits outweigh the costs?

3 Dec 2014

Can 50km of concrete, steel and tarmac bring greater integration within the Pearl River Delta region, revive Hong Kong’s flagging economy and spur the city on to greater financial heights? That’s the question most people have asked about the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which is scheduled for a grand opening in 2016. After all, advocates for the project have for many years now championed the structure as an economic saviour, a tourism booster and the most effective connection in the Pearl River Delta region.

Earlier this month, the government announced that it is seeking an additional $5billion in funding for an artificial island off eastern Lantau, which would form part of the bridge’s road network. That’s on top of the $83b that Hong Kong is already contributing to the $132.9b project. And, with this news, comes more speculation. Indeed, there’s now a greater need to reflect on whether the benefits of the bridge will ultimately outweigh the costs, especially as the money is coming from public coffers.

There’s also a need to look at whether Hong Kong as a city is set to get the best out of this colossal piece of infrastructure. It’s only fair to examine whether or not the newbridge will fail as a white elephant or herald the start of a beautiful relationship between the three cities that it links together.

Supporters of the project cite the economic benefits alongside the expected increase in tourists and the revitalisation of the city’s property market as positive reasons for the bridge’s existence. Anti-bridge proponents focus more on the potential environmental damage, saying that it’s simply a vanity project. While both sides rant on, though, it’s ultimately the rising cost of the whole project that has provoked fresh debate in the past few weeks. “There’s certainly no economic justification in building a bridge,” says Bob McKercher, professor of tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “When you look at the numbers, it’s a complete white elephant. It will never pay for itself. And, right now, the traffic flow will only ever go one way – and that’s from Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macau. There just isn’t enough of a population to have traffic flowing the other way. And the only real beneficiaries of the bridge will perhaps be Disney, the airport and Ngong Ping. I can’t see anybody else in Hong Kong benefitting from it.”

In response to claims that the bridge will boost Hong Kong’s tourism industry, McKercher explains: “People in Zhuhai are not going to come to Hong Kong because they can get everything they need from Macau. The studies that I’ve looked at indicate that there was a huge demand initially, but other studies have indicated that the bridge would never pay for itself. To me, this is just another unnecessary piece of infrastructure that has been justified by the god of tourism, by people who just don’t understand tourism.”

Critics have also pointed out the bridge’s contribution to air pollution and destruction of marine habitats, particularly in relation to the endangered pink dolphins living within the vicinity of the construction site. “The Environmental Impact Assessment only took into account the issue of piledriving for underwater noise reports,” says Gary Stokes, director of non-profit organisation Sea Shepherd Asia. “What they didn’t do is to consider the terrible everyday ongoing construction noise. Dolphins communicate and navigate through sound, so in human terms it’d be like being constantly blinded by a big, strong light. They wouldn’t be able to find their way around.”

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Many pro-bridgers have a brighter perspective. Stephen Townsend, director of urban design at architectural firm Gensler Asia, proposes a more holistic view when it comes to the bridge’s pros and cons beyond Hong Kong. “I think that real estate prices are going to skyrocket in Zhuhai because of the bridge, like in Shenzhen 20 years ago,” he says. “It brings services and spontaneous informal access directly from Hong Kong that we didn’t have before. Now I can have a house in Zhuhai at a third of the price and three times the space, and actually work in Hong Kong.”

Townsend continues: “I think the developers who own shopping centres in Hong Kong are going to be very happy once that bridge opens. And if you own property on Lantau Island, I think you’re also going to be happy that there’s now a marketplace that has direct access to the property market. I think the emphasis for growth in Hong Kong, considering the population will grow another two million in the next 15 years, will be around the Lantau, Tuen Mun and Sheung Wan areas. And a lot of that will depend on that connection to provide a balance of services, people and industry going back
and forth.”

“The bridge is beneficial in terms of trade, logistics and tourism by facilitating people and goods movements in the region,” says Allen Ha, chairman of the Lantau Development Alliance. “It will also be beneficial for our airport in terms of connectivity with the rest of the world. But, right now, if we just build the bridge, the tourists may still just go and stay at the traditional places [like Tsim Sha Tsui]. Our proposal then is to increase our receiving capacity in Lantau by building new hotels, which can help alleviate some of the tourist overflow in Hong Kong. Ultimately, we’re looking at a bigger area than Macau, Zhuhai and Hong Kong. We’re talking about the population in the whole Pearl River Delta, and allowing people to travel to a new place within an hour.” The Highways Department has also informed Time Out that ‘the journey time between Hong Kong International Airport and Zhuhai will be reduced from its current four hours or so to about 45 minutes’.

Despite all the conflicting viewpoints, the failure to integrate a rail link option as a form of public transportation is being viewed by both pro and anti-bridgers as a major oversight. “While [a rail link] would have probably raised the cost of the bridge considerably, it would have been fortuitous to have one, even if it just went to the immigration island between Zhuhai and Macau,” says Townsend. McKercher goes even further on the subject: “In light of concerns over air pollution, why the hell
are they building a bridge to put in more vehicular traffic? Why didn’t they also include a rail link to move people efficiently from border to border?”

Whether or not the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge brings any or all of its predicted benefits remains to be seen. And whether it affects the environment as much as some expect it to also hangs in the balance. But either way, the city is paying for it right now in hard cash. Like a car on the hard shoulder of the bridge, there’s no turning back. “It’s too late – we’re already building it,” says Townsend. “We can’t fight it. As a community, of course we can complain about it all we can. But I think we now need to figure out how we can make it work and how we can protect the areas of Hong Kong that we love from overspeculation and overexploitation.”

http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/70302/hong-kong-zhuhai-macau-bridge-will-the-benefits-outweigh-the-costs.html

Plea to reject airport runway impact study

Wednesday, 08 October, 2014

Cheung Chi-fai

Activists question whether advisers acted within law in endorsing report

Green activists yesterday stepped up pressure on the government to reject the environmental impact assessment report on the planned third runway at Chek Lap Kok, questioning the way the government’s advisers endorsed the report.

But they said they had not yet decided whether to launch a legal challenge if the report was accepted by the director of environmental protection later this month. The call followed the endorsement by the Advisory Council on the Environment last month of the Airport Authority’s study of the assessment.

“I regret the council’s decision,” Dolphin Conservation Society chairman Dr Samuel Hung Ka-yiu said.

“We just can’t accept it. What the authority did was just camouflage to conceal [the fact that it] had nothing to offer at all,” he told a special meeting of the Legislative Council’s economic development and environmental affairs panel.

The meeting also heard from supporters of the runway – mostly from the aviation and logistics industries – who said Hong Kong would pay a high economic price if the project was dumped.

“We have learned a painful lesson of losing our port business to Shenzhen after we hesitated over whether to build more port terminals,” said Pang Chor-fu, an executive director of the Hong Kong Chinese Importers’ and Exporters’ Association.

Cathay Pacific and its subsidiaries and unions also backed the project, as did taxi groups.

Green activists said they would not blindly oppose development but felt it was time to reconsider Hong Kong’s practice of using infrastructure projects to drive economic growth. They also questioned whether the council had acted within the law in endorsing the report.

WWF Hong Kong marine conservationist Samantha Lee Mei-wah urged the director not to approve the report, which she said was “substandard”.

Tang Kin-fai, assistant director of environmental protection, said the department and the council had both adhered to the law. “There was neither concealment nor conspiracy,” he told lawmakers at the meeting.

The third runway project will require reclamation of 650 hectares of sea that is a known habitat for the threatened Chinese white dolphin.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1611598/plea-reject-airport-runway-impact-study

Disturbing U-turn on flawed environmental report for third runway

Friday, 12 September, 2014

Samantha Lee

The Advisory Council on the Environment will meet on Monday to discuss whether to advise the Environmental Protection Department to give the green light to the third-runway plan. After a closed-door meeting of the council’s impact assessment subcommittee last week, the majority of members now appear to support endorsing the Airport Authority’s environmental impact report.

This is a complete reversal from last month, when most council members criticised the measures proposed to lessen the project’s effect on Chinese white dolphins. What made them change their mind?

Two main concerns were initially raised. First, the proposal for a marine park was deemed “too little, too late”, as it would not be located in a key dolphin habitat and would only be set up after the construction phase.

Second, nothing was proposed to lessen the impact on the dolphins of the more than 300 vessels travelling daily in and around the construction site. In addition, the species would suffer a permanent loss of 650 hectares of habitat.

Then came the turnaround. On September 1, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department suddenly announced that it was ready to designate two new marine parks – proposed 14 years ago – off Lantau Island by 2017.

The department has denied any link between these new parks and plans for the third runway. Yet, one day after the announcement, the council’s impact assessment subcommittee held another meeting, at which the majority of members said they would approve the Airport Authority’s environmental impact assessment report for the third runway.

The reasons for this U-turn are difficult to fathom.

The marine park announcement cannot be used to facilitate approval of the third runway. If members really want the two marine parks to help alleviate the project’s impact on the dolphins, they need to be discussed in the context of the third runway; the first step being an extension of the new parks’ boundaries to link up with existing marine parks near Tai O. Some council members may also have been swayed by the Airport Authority’s new 30-page plan released on September 2, which suggests financing conservation and research on marine ecology and fisheries. Yet there are doubts about some of the scientific claims in the report. Further, the authority describes it as “supplementary information”, casting doubt on whether the suggestions would actually be implemented.

Then there is the fact that the plan lacks any effective measures to alleviate or compensate for the loss of marine habitat caused by reclamation work during the building of the third runway.

In fact, none of the proposed marine parks would lessen the impact of the large-scale reclamation work. So why the sudden change of heart by council members when no progress has been made? It’s disturbing, when the authority’s impact assessment report clearly remains substandard and flawed.

Council members must make decisions in the best interest of Hong Kong’s environment. If the impact of the project cannot be properly addressed with the proposed measures, then the council is duty-bound to reject the impact assessment report.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1590821/disturbing-u-turn-onflawed-environmental-report-third-runway