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SCMP Reporter

Soil treatment will lay clean ground for Loop
I refer to your editorial ('Toxic wasteland hardly the place for universities', November 30). 
We share your views that the Lok Ma Chau Loop provides opportunities for 'facilities that can house the latest technologies' and 'academic exchange and research with mainland academia'. It is also our vision to develop the Loop as a green hub for higher education, research and development, and creative industries.
 We hope that our proposed planning scheme will generate not only synergy within the Loop  but also add vibrancy to this area through its proposed links and connectivity with Shenzhen to its north and the Northeast New Territories New Development Areas to its south.  
Contaminated mud dredged from the Shenzhen River during the training of the river in the 1990s had been deposited on the Loop. One of the priorities of the ongoing Planning and Engineering Study on Development of Lok Ma Chau Loop is to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the condition and extent of the deposited mud.
 Based on current study findings, there are five isolated spots, all very close to the old Shenzhen River meander, at which the metal 'arsenic' slightly exceeds the limit stipulated in the Risk-based Remediation Goals for Contaminated Land Assessment and Remediation promulgated by the Environmental Protection Department.
 A statutory environmental impact assessment  is being conducted. Subject to the findings of the final EIA, we plan to use well-established solidification/stabilisation methods to treat the contaminated soil on site. After remediation, the Loop will be no different from any other 'clean' land suitable for development.
 Members of the public are welcome to give their views.  
K.K. Ling, deputy director of planning, Planning Department 
HK firm leads on fuel change
Edward Rossiter ('Whiff of change in fuel switch?', December 2) is right to praise those shipping companies that have decided to burn low-sulphur fuel at berth in Hong Kong. However, I believe he is wrong in thinking that a European company led the change. The then Hong Kong-based China Navigation Company, which is owned by John Swire and Sons and had been operating out of Hong Kong since Noah was a boy, switched to low-sulphur fuel not only at berth in Hong Kong but throughout the Pearl River Delta region, from January 26, 2008. At the time, they invited other shipping lines to follow their example, and we should all be delighted that this is now happening.
I do not seek to belittle Maersk, whose environmental initiatives are impressive in scope and global in scale, but it was a local company which showed the way in Hong Kong. It is also encouraging to note that the majority of companies that have signed the charter are based in East Asia. Let's hope the rest of the global shipping community will soon catch up.
 Most tugs, ferries and other forms of local craft already burn low-sulphur marine gas oil. It is the heavy bunker fuel on ocean-going vessels  that is the major pollutant, and it is this that is now being significantly reduced, thanks to a handful of major shipping lines.
Finally, I have been blaming the acrid smell which lurks above Stonecutters Bridge on the new sewage treatment plant located near the PLA Navy base and Government Dockyard.    
Alan Loynd, Yuen Long 
Better options to boar swat squad
Shooting wild boars, as a 'boar swat team' allegedly did in Stanley recently, is extremely cruel and will not do anything to control these animals' population in the long run.
Hunting rips animal families apart  and animals that are shot may escape wounded, only to die slowly and painfully of blood loss or shock. As long as residents continue luring boars to the area by feeding them, more boars will simply move in to take the place of those  shot, resulting in an endless cycle of killing.
Wild boars can be humanely and effectively deterred from frequenting an area by enforcing a no-feeding rule and installing electric fences around off-limits areas. 
If the boars' numbers must be reduced, tranquilising and sterilising the females is far less cruel than blasting  them to death.  
Rebecca Chui, Peta Asia 
Business needs low-carbon look
In a recent column, Tom Holland ('HK's greenhouse gas proposals will be ineffective and expensive', November 30) indicated that one easy way to reduce Hong Kong's gas emissions is to cut down on  air conditioning in commercial buildings. 
I've always thought that wearing long-sleeve shirts and dark business suits in sub-tropical Hong Kong made no sense - especially when the air conditioning is turned up to accommodate the legions of post-colonials who copy the insane practice of 19th century colonials who pretended, no matter where they settled in the British Empire, that they were in London.  
At a ceremonial function, I appeared in a safari jacket and a British friend exclaimed: 'Why, you look as if you have just arrived from the tropics!' To which my answer was: 'I hate to tell you, but this is the tropics!'  
Why, in this day and age, is it acceptable to be formal only in a Western business suit? There are many comfortable and formal-looking styles of Asian attire -  Indonesian batiks, Philippine banana shirts, crisp linen Mao jackets - all of which can be worn comfortably without turning up the air conditioning. 
How much could we reduce gas emissions if the air conditioning in commercial buildings were adjusted to normal ambient temperatures, instead of the super-cool temperatures to accommodate the ersatz London bankers in their long-sleeve shirts and their dark suits? 
This silliness not only costs a good deal of money, it adds substantially to the gas emissions that Hong Kong produces. 
Eugene Eoyang, Mid-LevelsPut the brake on minibus speeds
Every day I take a red minibus to work from Sai Kung to Mong Kok and back. Constantly, the speeds are the maximum that the driver can achieve. Where there is dual carriageway, it's always over 70km/h (the speed limit) and often over 80 or even 90km/h. At this speed they can't stop under about 50 metres, and their turning and control is poor because they are large vehicles.  
The standard of public transport is amazing in Hong Kong and we all benefit from the easy connections, but the safety of these minibuses is appalling.  
There needs to be better regulation of their driving. Currently if a member of the public complains about the buses,  the police need to go to court with  that person as a witness for anything to be done. If we could introduce more speed cameras, and higher fines for speeding by public vehicles, this might have some effect. Most fines for minibuses are about HK$300, which is too low.  
But ultimately the government needs to regulate the licensing of these minibuses better and not allow them to pay the drivers a bonus for doing more round trips, but instead pay them a set daily wage regardless of trip numbers.  I encourage people who do ride on speeding minibuses to fill in the easy online complaint form at www.info.gov.hk/tcu/complaint/index.htm
M. Murdoch, Sai Kung 
Care fund adds to charity strain
 So much of my work with charities and NGOs involves fund-raising. The same struggles go on year after year. These are funds for children in the mainland and for young people in Hong Kong. Now we have another competitor to make life even more difficult. What is to stop those from whom we look to for support to turn away and say, 'I have already contributed to the Community Care fund'? No amount of persuasion  will stop them from taking this attitude. Then, too, I fail to understand how it is that the Director of Audit can report that there is an unspent balance of HK$7,854,537,000 in the social welfare lotteries fund. These are worrying times for all those like me who spend so much time scraping each year. 
David Akers-Jones, Mid-Levels
Essential private medical service
As a patient of a private medical practitioner, it has been necessary on a number of occasions for me to be admitted to a private hospital  for urgent treatment. I do not own a car, and even if I did, my illness would have made it impossible for me to drive, and I needed to call for an ambulance since my seriously weakened condition prevented me from taking other means of transport.
I am therefore dismayed that it has been decided to discontinue the ambulance service for transport to private hospitals. This deprives a patient of his/her choice of medical treatment and runs contrary to government policy of encouraging patients to seek treatment from private doctors instead of using our over-stretched public service.
As reported in your columns, only 4 per cent of patients calling for an ambulance ask to be taken to a private hospital.  
Of course, the authorities should take action to deal with the large number of abuses of the ambulance service. However, clearly there are no such abuses where seriously ill patients taken to private hospitals are concerned.
The fact is that there is no other ambulance service available here in Hong Kong, unlike many cities in other parts of the world where such services are provided by commercial interests or the individual hospitals for a set charge. This would solve the problem for the particular group of patients who have a genuine  need for an ambulance. 
Antonio Francisco Lopez, Kowloon



Letters