A New Desalination Plant in Hong Kong

Desalination—the process of extracting fresh water from salty sea water—is nothing new for Hong Kong.

In the 1970s, the colonial government built a desalination plant in Tuen Mun. Now defunct, it was erected as part of an initiative to solve the water shortage crisis of the 60s. Desalination might be making a 21st-century comeback now that Chief Executive Donald Tsang has announced a plan to build a new plant in his last policy address.

According to the government proposal, a medium-scale desalination plant will be constructed at a 10-hectare site in Tseung Kwan O. The plant, which will start running eight years from now, will supply about 50 million cubic meters of water per year, making up five percent of the city’s total water supply.

An amount that small may not sound impressive, but any little bit helps. It’s imperative for the government to seek out and develop new water sources. Water shortages are just a vivid memory for older generations of Hongkongers, and our city seems to have developed a sense of complacency ever since 1965, when Hong Kong started to import water from Dongjiang.

Hong Kong is heavily reliant on the river in Guangdong province—about 70 to 80 percent of our water originates there. But does signing a water supply agreement with Guangdong authorities mean that Hong Kong’s water problem has been solved once and for all? Not a chance.

“In the past, there were economic incentives for the mainland to provide Dongjiang water to Hong Kong. Nowadays, we pay about $3 for each ton of Dongjiang water. Water used to be very cheap on the mainland, and it only cost about $1 per ton in the past [to export]. Of course, [the mainland found] it profitable to sell water to Hong Kong,” says Civic Party Vice-chairman and engineer Albert Lai, who co-founded a water infrastructure investment firm in 1996. “But things are different now. Shenzhen pays about $2 for each ton of water.”