An $8.2 billion sewage plant designed to reduce harbour pollution has instead increased bacteria levels in surrounding waters and played a significant part in the closure of four Tsuen Wan beaches last week.
The Stonecutters Island treatment plant - which came into full operation 14 months ago as the first stage of the Harbour Area Treatment Scheme (HATS) - has been linked to substantial rises in levels of E.coli , a disease-causing bacteria, on the western side of Victoria Harbour.
The plant is discharging partially-treated sewage back into the sea until further stages of the scheme are completed. Water quality in Victoria Harbour is unlikely to improve for 10 to 15 years under the current timetable.
A South China Morning Post investigation has also found that Hong Kong is lagging far behind other cities, such as Singapore, in cleaning up its harbour, despite having directed more than $30 billion towards improving water quality since 1989.
Concern over pollution resurfaced last week when four beaches in the Tsuen Wan area - Casam, Lido, Gemini and Hoi Mei Wan - were closed to swimmers for the coming bathing season.
Donald Tong Chi-keung, deputy secretary of the Environment, Transport and Works Bureau, said the closure of the beaches was 'a very unfortunate price to pay in the short-term'. He apportioned most of the blame to sewage discharged from villages in the Tsuen Wan district and said the treatment plant accounted for only about 20 per cent of the problem.