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GREEN groups have scored a minor victory over the Government's Lantau port development plans after officials scrapped a proposal to quarry rocks from a hill on Lantau Island.

  Instead, the proposed reclamation at Penny's Bay, which was to be filled with the rocks, will be carried out using marine sand.

  'Fill material for the reclamation will be obtained from marine sources and not from a borrow area at Tsing Chau Tsai,' a Port Development Board spokesman confirmed.

  Board chairman John Gray said there had been plans to create a 'mega-quarry' at Tsing Chau Tsai, a major landmark in eastern Lantau, but this had been ruled out partly because it would have caused too much air pollution.

  Friends of the Earth spokesman Lisa Hopkinson welcomed the move but said she was still concerned about the effect the removal of so much sand would have on marine life.

  'Where is this fill material going to come from? We can't win,' she said.

  'The port is another huge reclamation project . . . but the Government has not looked at the sources for the marine fill.'   A scheme to build a three-kilometre long breakwater has been left out of the environmental impact assessment even though it is an integral part of the port project, Ms Hopkinson said.

  The board will meet Friends of the Earth, World Wide Fund for Nature and other groups in about two weeks to discuss the port.

  'We are still deciding how to talk to them and how to invite them,' said the board spokesman.

  He denied the meeting was being held because of continued criticism of the plans, although board Secretary Tony Clark, admitted the Government had been slow to counter objections.

  Yesterday, the Government gazetted plans to build the first part of a $6.67 billion scheme to build roads and areas supporting the port development.

  The $2.16 billion project includes construction of a road between the Yam O interchange on the North Lantau Expressway and Container Terminals 10 and 11, and associated roads, bridges and drainage to back up areas.



Green groups score victory over quarry