LEADING environmentalists have criticised plans to build a $16 billion power station on Lamma Island.
Hongkong Electric wants to build two 600-megawatt generating units next to its existing 2,955-megawatt plant on Lamma, with the first unit being commissioned by 2003.
Friends of the Earth director Mei Ng Fong Siu-mei said: 'I think Hong Kong people would be getting a very bad deal.
'The environment would be getting a very bad deal.' She accused the utility companies of over-estimating the territory's future energy demand, saying they had never justified their estimates.
Principal assistant secretary (economic services) Eric Johnson confirmed a government-commissioned consultancy report was completed a few days ago.
But he denied the Government had given its blessing to the utility company's proposal to build the two generating units.