Environmental impact study of delta bridge challenged in court
A public consultation carried out by the government on construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge was unable to serve its purpose because the project's environmental impact study did not meet assessment standards, a court heard yesterday.
Chu Yee-wah, a Tung Chung resident, is challenging the impact study as well as the granting of permits for certain parts of the huge infrastructure project.
Chu earlier filed an application for a judicial review of Environmental Protection Department director Anissa Wong Sean-yee's decision in 2009 to approve impact reports and grant environmental permits to construct certain sections of the massive project.
'Members of the public can comment on a compliant report,' Chu's barrister, Philip Dykes SC, said yesterday. 'But if a report is non-compliant, the process is defeated.'
Dykes said the process of consultation was important as it allowed the public to comment, and the director of environmental protection to take into consideration things that might have been overlooked.
Yesterday saw the first day of a four-day hearing on the review application at the High Court before Mr Justice Joseph Fok.
The impact study and granting of permits under challenge concern border-crossing facilities and a section of the bridge in Hong Kong known as the Hong Kong Link Road. Chu criticised the reports drafted by consultants, saying they do not comply with requirements imposed on them.
Chu's application argued that an important aspect of the impact study was the public's evaluation of how acceptable a project's environmental cost would be.
Chu, 65, who is retired, has diabetes and a heart condition. She is contending that the construction and operation of the projects in question would affect her health. She is receiving legal aid for the application, and was not present at the hearing yesterday.
Chu's legal team argued the reports failed to consider the bridge's impact on public health. Experts cited in her application said the impact reports ignored pollution such as fine suspended particles and sulphur dioxide, and that an assumption in one report that the project would not generate ozone was invalid and unscientific.
Speaking in court yesterday, Dykes said the impact reports had not mentioned the limitations of a model used to predict regional air quality.
The model, called 'Pollutants in the Atmosphere and the Transport over Hong Kong', was developed by the Environmental Protection Department.
Construction of the bridge is scheduled to begin this year and to be completed by 2016. The estimated cost of the entire project, including the bridge and connecting facilities, is 72.9 billion yuan (HK$83 billion).
Edwin Town, deputy chairman of the executive committee at Clear The Air, an organisation supporting air-pollution reduction measures, said environmental impact assessment reports frequently left out important information.
Clear The Air was supporting Chu's application, said Town outside the court yesterday.
Hefty price tag
The estimated cost of the entire Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project, in HK dollars: $83b
