Plover Cove housing proposal would be risk to Hong Kong water security, government source says

A proposal to fill in the city’s second largest reservoir to build homes on will prove to be a serious challenge to implement and put Hong Kong’s water security at risk.

That is the government’s view on the controversial idea for Plover Cove Reservoir, floated by real estate academics earlier this year, according to a source close to the government-appointed Task Force on Land Supply.

The Post understands the proposal will be on the agenda of the task force’s fifth meeting on Tuesday.

The land search committee, formed in August and made up of various experts and professionals has been tasked with evaluating land supply options and forming public consensus.

While filling Plover Cove Reservoir would create 600 hectares of residential land, the cost of doing so is a 40 per cent reduction in local freshwater storage from 586 million cubic metres to 365 cubic metres according to the source, citing a government paper to be discussed at the meeting.

Hong Kong maintains four to six months’ storage of freshwater in reservoirs in case of any supply disruption from the Dongjiang river, which runs through Guangdong province and accounts for 80 per cent of local needs. Losing Plover Cove would reduce the security buffer to just three to four months and it would undermine the city’s ability to respond if water supply from Dongjiang river has to be suspended, the government says in the paper.