Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ17: Wholesale Fish Market
Following is a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (May 28):
Question:
The Architectural Services Department is planning to build a Joint User Complex and Wholesale Fish Market at Area 44, Tuen Mun, and the Environmental Impact Assessment Report ("the EIA Report") submitted in respect of the project was approved with conditions set by the Director of Environmental Protection ("the Director") on March 14, this year. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of written objections the Director received from the public during the public inspection period of the EIA Report; and of the reasons for the Director's approving the EIA Report despite the large number of objections received;
(b) whether it has decided to implement the project; if so, of the implementation schedule; if not, whether it will consider identifying an alternative site for the provision of the facilities; and
(c) whether it plans to contract out the daily operation of the Wholesale Fish Market to the private sector; if so, whether the selection exercise for the operator has been completed; if so, of the name of the operator selected?
Reply:
(a) The Director of Environmental Protection (DEP) received a total of 1 071 sets of public comments when the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was exhibited for public inspection from November 19, 2002 to December 18, 2002. Four hundred of them supported the proposed project whilst the remaining 671 raised either concerns on or objection to it.
The public comments received were mainly about the possible odour and noise impacts arising from the operation of the fish market. After having duly examined the public comments and further information submitted by the Director of Architectural Services in response to the comments, DEP considered that, with the mitigation measures and the environmental monitoring and audit programme recommended in the EIA report, the environmental impacts would be controlled to within established standards. DEP therefore approved the EIA report with conditions on March 14, 2003. The recommended mitigation measures will be set out as conditions in the Environmental Permit for the construction and operation of the fish market.
(b) As the EIA report has now been approved, we intend to apply for funding to enable the construction of the Complex. Subject to the availability of funds, we will commence design, tendering procedures and construction of the Complex. At this stage, we envisage that the project would take about four years to complete.
(c) The proposed Wholesale Fish Market in Area 44 of Tuen Mun will be operated by the Fish Marketing Organization (FMO), which is a statutory organisation established under the Marine Fish (Marketing) Ordinance (Cap. 291) to regulate and manage wholesale fish markets in Hong Kong.
End/Wednesday, May 28, 2003
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