Third runway decision on hold over dolphin habitat concerns

Prospects for a proposed third runway at Hong Kong International Airport seemed uncertain yesterday as environment advisers delayed their decision on whether to approve its environmental impact assessment study.

The advisers - from a subcommittee under the Advisory Council on the Environment - were concerned about how adequate and effective measures to mitigate the project's impact on the threatened Chinese white dolphin habitat would be.

If the study is approved and the HK$130 billion project is given the go-ahead, some 650 hectares of prime habitat for the shrinking dolphin population would be lost to land reclamation for the third runway. Construction would last from 2016 to 2023.

The Airport Authority will respond in writing to further queries from the subcommittee, before another meeting on Monday for the advisers to deliberate their decision.

The subcommittee, which has spent 15 hours in three days grilling the authority's officials on the environmental impact assessment study, met yesterday afternoon to discuss whether to recommend the advisory council to endorse the report.

But by the end of the meeting, it had still not drawn a conclusion on the city's single most costly infrastructure project. The council has to submit its views by late next month to the environmental protection director, who will then decide whether to issue a work permit for the project.

A subcommittee member, who wanted to remain anonymous, said members at the meeting "freely expressed their opinions" about the report and what outstanding issues had to be further addressed by the authority.