A rock conservation group has objected to a proposed offshore wind farm at Sai Kung, fearing it will doom the city's plan to create a geopark in the area.
Although CLP Power's wind farm would lie outside the proposed geopark area, the project would have an adverse visual impact and would damage rare rock formations on the seabed, said Young Ng Chun-yeong, chairman of the Association for Geoconservation.
'I'm afraid the wind farm will kill our geopark,' the geologist said.
The government hopes to have a 4,000 hectare area of land and sea off Sai Kung, including the Ninepin Islands, recognised as a geopark by the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. It hopes eventually to gain United Nations recognition for the park. Unesco says a geopark should include geologically, archaeological and/or culturally important sites.
CLP Power plans to erect 67 wind turbines 135 metres high near the Ninepins, which are about 10km east of Clear Water Bay. The turbines would descend to the seabed, where cylinders attached to the shaft would fill with water and penetrate the sea floor under the weight of the structure, thereby avoiding the need to dredge the sea floor and sink piles into the rock.
'You won't be able to see [the wind farm] clearly most of the time, especially in hazy weather, as it is quite far away from land,' Joseph Law Ka-chun, the project manager for CLP Power, said this week. The wind farm would generate power for 80,000 households.
