Villagers clash amid bid to fix dump site
The row over illegal dumping of waste in Ho Sheung Heung escalated into a clash between villagers yesterday, and police had to be called to intervene.
Hau Mo-yi, whose mother's farmland was trashed with tonnes of construction waste, said she, her sister-in-law and two men were being held for questioning at Lok Ma Chau police station last night. Hau said she and her sister-in-law had been accused of breaking a padlock at the site in the Sheung Shui village.
Hau claimed they were harassed and sprayed with water by two men as they photographed soil being dumped.
One of the men, she alleged, was the brother of the village head Hau Chi-keung.
While the two women were not hurt - their clothes were left wet - one of the two cameras used to record the dumping appeared to have suffered water damage.
Hau said the village head was present during the incident. She called police for help at about 5.40pm and about eight officers arrived in 10 minutes.
The village head last night described the incident as a 'minor one' in which two villagers got wet accidentally as his colleagues and brothers were irrigating the site. He said he had dropped by after the incident.
Hau Mo-yi, who lives in the village, said she visited the site every day to monitor activity. She took photos, video and even jotted down the details of the trucks unloading waste.
She said that work on the site had continued since some brown soil was dumped four days ago. The fresh soil was being laid on top of the waste and that was being covered by slabs of turf. Three more truckloads of soil were dumped yesterday and a bulldozer was working to level the rest of the site.
The moves were believed to be a ploy to meet the Planning Department's order to remove the waste and restore the site to its original condition. However, the department's order was being suspended pending an administrative review lodged by landlords of the site.
'The dumping has never stopped. It has become more hideous. Some of the trucks also had their licence plates blackened with dirt,' Hau said.
She said that a man, believed to have been hired to guard the site and act as a lookout, warned truck drivers of the two women's presence.
'One of the truck drivers, on seeing us, was afraid to unload the soil. But he gave in after the people in charge shouted at him,' she said.
Officers from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and Planning Department also visited the site yesterday.
A spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department refused to say if they were inspecting whether the soil being used to cover the waste was suitable for agriculture. Proof of the soil's suitability for farming is crucial. Under planning rules, land-filling using genuine soil suitable for farming is allowed, although the height of the fill is capped at 1.2 metres.
'We were there at the request of the Planning Department to offer some technical advice,' the spokesman said.
