Engineers come up with ski scheme for slopes
Forget solar panels and bird's nest cultivation, the Government's geotechnical gurus have come up with another plan for the SAR's unused slopes - grass skiing.
The latest initiative - from an internal report entitled To Generate Innovative Ideas to Turn Slopes into Assets , which was completed last month - argued that many steep slopes could be ideal for the sport.
The engineers had previously proposed installing solar panels to generate electricity or using the slopes to cultivate swallows' nests for bird's nest soup.
The second idea was quickly shot down by experts, who said bird's nest soup was made from the saliva of cave-dwelling swiftlets and not swallows. Swiftlets do not live in Hong Kong.
Now, a team from the Slope Safety Division of the Civil Engineering Department believes the international sport of grass skiing should be promoted here. Requiring gear similar to snow skiing, the new sport is popular in Europe's Alpine countries.
'We will need a large area of slope - the landfill sites in Tseung Kwan O are probably a good choice - but we don't have any locations identified yet,' said senior geotechnical engineer Tam Heng-kong. He said the resort could be developed privately or by the Government, regardless of the slope's ownership.
'The Government won't stop any interested private party running a recreational resort even if it's a government slope,' he said.
Mr Tam said it was too early to go into details, such as the cost, the land required and timetables.
Raymond Ho Chung-tai, a legislator who represents the engineering sector, doubted suitable slopes could be found. 'Most slopes in Hong Kong are 'acidic', meaning they are very steep,' he said. 'We have to bear in mind for everything we do that public safety is most important since we will have people of all ages skiing and many will just be beginners.'
Other slope ideas include using them to house centralised cooling systems or mobile phone transmission antennas.
