I refer to Amy Yung's letter headlined, 'Government turned deaf ear to residents' pleas' (Sunday Morning Post, December 10).
As an owners' representative in Discovery Bay for many years, I must take issue with what Ms Yung said.
Hong Kong Resort Co Ltd (HKR) from 1995 onwards, repeatedly approached its highest consultative body, the City Owners' Committee (COC), regarding the scheme for Discovery Bay to switch to the Government's water supply. The committee always supported the scheme by a unanimous decision. Ms Yung was a member of the committee and was present at most of those meetings.
The issue was also discussed without any objections being raised at Peng Chau/Discovery Bay Area Committee meetings. On many of those occasions, Ms Yung was in attendance.
Given that it had the support from these groups, HKR went ahead with investments. It claimed to have invested $50 million on modification works and $1.65 billion on new development premiums to the Government.
In view of residents' concerns about water discoloration in Discovery Bay, I spent a lot of my time studying the issue and wrote an article in 1998 for Around The Bay, the residents' magazine. However, Ms Yung in her capacity as COC chairman and Francisco Da Roza, editor of the magazine at that time, would not publish my article.
In my article, which I titled 'DB Water', I revealed, inter alia, that the water quality in Discovery Bay was good, that there could be many possible reasons for water discolouration and that the catchment areas were too small to cater for a population of 25,000. I said it would therefore be necessary to collect water from nearby brooks, which might be polluted, during drought seasons because of the increased population. I added that the two filtration plants in Discovery Bay were ageing. With the existing growth rate of the community, it would be necessary to build a new filtration system, and that could be enormously expensive.