Water supply was restored to Tung Chung this morning after government staff repaired a burst pipe that had cut supply to the whole district.
A burst pipe at Sheung Ling Pei between Yu Tung Rd and Tung Chung Rd cut drinking water to Tung Chung New Town and surrounding villages at noon Tuesday.
Among the premises affected was North Lantau Hospital. A spokesperson told Apple Daily it had ample supply of water from its backup water tank. The Water Supplies Department (WSD) also sent a water truck to the hospital.
The 150mm-diameter pipe between on the edge of Tung Chung was part of the main pipe that supplied the town and therefore impacted the entire suburb. WSD staff restored supply at 6am today.
Meanwhile, some Discovery Bay residents were without flushing water for up to two days after a pipe burst on Sunday.
A 63-year-old Lantau bus driver has given a suspended four-month jail sentence and fined HK$5,000 over the death of a pedestrian in Tung Chung.
The driver of a no. 34 New Lantau Bus Co. vehicle hit and killed a 38-year-old man crossing the road in Yat Tung on January 24.
The court found the driver’s view had been obscured by the vehicle permits on the windscreen, Apple Daily reported. In court, the driver’s lawyer said in the wake of the incident he had been undergoing counselling and had stopped driving, suffering a loss of income as a result.
The judge said the death of a man in his prime was a “tragedy” but there was no evidence the driver was exceeding the speed limit. He imposed a four-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, banned him from driving for two years and fined him HK$5,000.
Here’s a reminder that Lantau’s natural beauty and ecosystem are tourism’s best friend, not its enemy as the government and supporters seem to believe.
The Tamil Grass Dart, one of Ngong Ping’s ‘three treasures’
Ngong Ping 360 is running a butterfly-themed family promotion over the summer, taking advantage of the presence of Lantau’s 100-plus butterflies species. As well as butterfly-watching, there’s a workshop on taking wildlife photos, another on “butterfly art” a dance performance, and so on.
“We would also like visitors to understand the ecology of Lantau so that they may treasure the natural environment even more,” said Ngong Ping 360 marketing head Vivien Lee. Continue reading
Here’s a message from Lantau’s police chief: we will enforce the law.
The new district commander, Senior Superintendent Alice Lee (above), says crime and community safety are her top priorities and that bovines and incense trees need to be protected.
With just 300 police covering an area roughly twice the size of Hong Kong Island, she adopts what she calls collaborative and intelligence-based policing – in other words, finding ways to work with the community.
But she acknowledges that traffic issues are critical because of the island’s narrow roads and growing vehicle numbers, and makes it clear that her officers will uphold the law.
In response to the rising road risks, the number of traffic bookings has grown sharply: police issued 201 tickets in the first half of this year and 473 last year, compared to just 278 in 2014.
Inevitably, the number of complaints has also soared. Lee and her team are visiting all of the local rural committees to discuss the issue and explain their traffic policies.
“I need to do some publicity and education on our village representatives so they can spread the message. Because they are puzzled – why ticket us? They are not happy.”
Limited parking
Parking tickets are an especially sensitive issue because of the limited spaces available, particularly around Mui Wo.
“I can’t tell [them] that I won’t ticket them. I’m here to enforce the law,” Lee said.
She does make it clear police will issue tickets to illegally parked cars that cause danger and obstruction to other road users. They will also book vehicles illegally parked next to parking meters.
Lee acknowledged the vexed issue of vehicles using the emergency access road in Mui Wo. She could not discuss it in detail but said: “We understand the community concerns, and actions are in the pipeline now.”
Her approach to the equally contentious issue of cattle and buffalo is more straightforward.
“Care to the cows and buffalos remain our top priority, though sometimes they do slow down our traffic. But I would say their lives are precious and they are a species that we humans should be protecting. We need to educate drivers to be careful on the narrow roads of Lantau Island.”
She jokes that the old Cheung Sha police station regularly hosts visitors from the local herd. “They often flock to the Cheung Sha operations base, eat the grass there and take a rest. We will let them stay there.”
The South Lantau idyll couldn’t be more different from Lee’s previous posting. Densely-packed Kwun Tong, where she served until five months ago, has 700,000 people and nearly three times the number of officers.
It experiences every kind of crime, Lee recalls. The biggest difference with Lantau is the high level of commercial crime – that barely exists on rural Lantau. Police here deal with offences like home burglaries and illegal immigrant, and personal crimes such as criminal damage and domestic disputes.
They also deal with a distinctively Lantau problem – incense tree theft. Hong Kong’s name 香港 (fragrant harbour) derives from the aromatic agarwood produced by these trees. It’s in hot demand from wealthy mainland Chinese, and Lantau and the New Territories are prime targets.
Lee says police have received no reports of logging this year, although a number of trees have been prepped for chopping. She says police need help from the community in identifying locations of trees and reporting logging.
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Lantau police responsibilities will widen further with the opening of the Hong Kong-Macau bridge, theoretically at the end of 2017. Lee’s team will be responsible for policing the landing point and the Hong Kong end of the bridge, meaning an extra 150 police will be attached to the local force.
It may also mean the reopening of the old Cheung Sha police base to accommodate the extra officers, depending on the outcome of a review of office needs.
Lee brings the language and ideas of 21st century management to her role. Her conversation is punctuated with references to community engagement, knowledge management, service quality and feedback.
And she actually invites residents to complain.
“Tell us if you are dissatisfied with our performance,” Lee urges. “If you want to make a formal complaint, we will refer you to the Police Complaints Office. But if you just want to reflect your opinion to, we are happy to receive it. It’s important that we get the feedback from you. Its very important that our officers should learn.”
Hong Kong leader CY Leung is under fire from multiple directions for his beach cleanup exercise on South Lantau yesterday.
A team of around 60 government cleaning contractors was hired early Sunday morning to collect and sort the trash at Shui Hau ahead of the arrival of Leung and his 70-strong party of senior bureaucrats, according to local activist Ho Loy. Continue reading
For the second time in less than a month, senior SAR officials have converged on Lantau to collect beach trash.
This morning CY Leung himself led a team of 70 officials that collected 1.35 tonnes of rubbish from Cheung Sha and Shui Hau, RTHK reported. Leung said they had been inspired by the efforts of local residents.
As a minder looks on, CY Leung and Wong Kam-sing make themselves useful. Source: HK Government
An AFCD official has claimed that rubbish dumping on Pui O wetland is not “significant” because it covers a small area.
Source: LBA
In an email exchange with local community members over yet another incident of dumping in Pui O, an official said:
While the dumping activity has affected about 120 m.sq. of abandoned agricultural field, it is considered that the potential ecological impact to Pui O area as a whole is unlikely to be significant in view of the relatively small size of the area affected.
If there’s one thing Lantau’s rural representatives agree on it’s roads.
They are urging construction of two roads in particular: a northwest coastal road from Tung Chung to Tai O, and a north-south link from Pak Mong, just east of Tung Chung, to Mui Wo.
The coastal road was canvassed in the early LanDAC plans – as was a road from Tai O to Fan Lau – but was rejected, either for reasons for cost or conservation. The north coast, which hosts villages such as San Tau and Sha Lo Wan, includes coastal wetlands and natural streams and habitat for butterflies and diverse rare species.
Randy Yu, Islands District Council vice-chairman and newly-elected member for South Lantau, complained that “authorities have never thought about a long-term transport strategy” for Lantau. Continue reading
This blog has finally got around to trawling through the submissions to the LegCo hearing on Lantau development in April. First up: environmental groups warn the government’s development programme will lead to “uncontrollable eco-vandalisms” because of the lack of zoning protections and weak enforcement.
In a joint submission, five green NGOs say they are “deeply concerned” by the development-centric model that does not provide adequate protection for important conservation sites.
They point out that the island has “exceptionally rich biodiversity,” including the Chinese White Dolphin, the finless porpoise and Romer’s Tree Frog, among others. “However, the deficiency in enforcement capabilities due to loopholes in existing legislation has rendered Lantau vulnerable to environmental vandalism,” they warn.
This is because, under the Hong Kong approach to land use and conservation, a site can only be protected if it is designated as a development site, known as a Development Permission Area (DPA). To give a prominent example: the South Lantau Coast Outline Zoning Plan (OZP) was published in 1980 yet has not been covered by a DPA plan.
As a result, eco-vandalism has been proliferating with impunity on private land, including ecologically important wetlands in Pui O. With such a loophole in statutory control under the Town Planning Ordinance, the future economic activities stimulated by the proposed developments and the ease of access caused by the relaxation of closed roads would lead to uncontrollable eco-vandalisms and further encroachment on unspoiled natural habitats.
The paper lists 16 species or habitats that are of conservation concern, including Yam O and Sunny Bay wetlands, Tung Chung Valley, Tung Chung Bay, the northwest Lantau coast and Tai O.
It says areas without statutory protection should be designated with DPAs or incorporated into the Country Park system “without delay” because of the imminent development pressure. DPAs should be applied urgently to rural areas already covered by OZPs, such as the Pui O wetlands.
The five NGOs – Designing Hong Kong, Green Power, Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, The Conservancy Association and WWF Hong Kong – also call for the continued enforcement of South Lantau’s closed roads, urging the adoption of public and environmental-friendly transport rather than private cars.
Any new roads should be well justified, assessed (in the context of environmental impacts and cost effectiveness) and publicly consulted. Green Groups opine that no new roads should be planned in Country Parks, South Lantau and Tung Chung Bay, and near or in other ecological important sites.
They also urge the establishment the West Lantau Marine Park in the waters off Yi O and Tai O to connect all the Marine Parks around Lantau. This would reduce the impact on dolphins of the rush of development projects by safeguarding their remaining habitats and preserving travelling corridors.
The submission was endorsed by 21 other NGOs, including Ark Eden, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace East Asia and Living Islands Movement.
This blog has finally got around to trawling through the submissions to the LegCo hearing on Lantau development in April. First up: environmental groups warn the government’s development programme will lead to “uncontrollable eco-vandalisms” because of the lack of zoning protections and weak enforcement.
In a joint submission, five green NGOs say they are “deeply concerned” by the development-centric model that does not provide adequate protection for important conservation sites.
They point out that the island has “exceptionally rich biodiversity,” including the Chinese White Dolphin, the finless porpoise, and Romer’s Tree Frog, among others.
However, the deficiency in enforcement capabilities due to loopholes in existing legislation has rendered Lantau vulnerable to environmental vandalism.
Lantau Confidential 