Pollution watchdogs are planning to start testing sea life in an overhaul of monitoring methods that they hope will provide a more accurate picture of the health of Hong Kong waters.
The Environmental Protection Department (EPD), which currently analyses water samples to determine the presence of heavy metals and other pollutants, is considering using 'bio-monitoring' in which fish, mussels, barnacles and other organisms are tested for the accumulation of pollutants.
It will launch a two-year study in September on a full-scale deployment of the technique, which would supplement existing procedures.
The suggestion comes at the end of public consultations on proposed changes to the Water Pollution Control Ordinance aimed at making it easier to use monitoring data as evidence against illegal polluters and to increase penalties.
A department spokesman said: 'We recognise the importance of monitoring biological effects of pollutants in waters and will be commissioning a two-year study to develop a system for bio-monitoring marine pollution in Hong Kong.'
He said the department had used bio-monitoring on several projects and obtained useful results.
