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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, on the leachate leak incident at the North East New Territories Landfill after attending the special meeting of the Legislative Council Panel on Environmental Affairs today (October 2):
Reporter: According to the Ming Pao reports, the sample actually exceeded the legal limit by 61 times. How's that actually not affecting the public health here?
Secretary for the Environment: Here I would like to clarify two points. Firstly, Ming Pao actually refers to the level or standard under the contract, that is about 0.5 unit. Under the law, the level actually is 5 units, so that is 10 times more than that in the contract. So if you are referring to the legal standard, it is not 61 times, it is only six times. But I think it is a pretty technical issue. If you refer to the experts about this wastewater level, it is not that alarming in a way. In particular, the wastewater is discharged to a kind of concrete culvert and not into a natural river condition. That's why its impact to the surroundings is somehow contained and not that damaging in a way.
Reporter: Is there a need to replace the management or the team that is operating the landfill? Is there any plan to remove them because they keep on violating the standard ...?
Secretary for the Environment: For the so-called violation, actually, at this juncture, I would say it is a single incident and the so-called recent exceedance is a kind of residue effect to the accident. So, overall it is a single accident.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Issued at HKT 19:30
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