12 SUMMARY OF ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES

12.1 The Project

12.1.1 The Diamond Hill Crematorium has been handling the cremation service in Kowloon area since 1979 (i.e. operated for more than 24 years) and dealt with clinical waste (mostly amputated body parts) from 1994 to 2001. Judging from the long operation period and the fairly frequent fault incidents recorded in the past year, the existing cremators have been approaching the end of their serviceable life and should be replaced with new ones to cater for the increasing demand of cremation service (Section 2.1). This Project therefore proposes to demolish the Existing Crematorium and to build the New Crematorium at the Existing Crematorium site.

12.1.2 Demolition of the Existing Crematorium at Diamond Hill will include the following:

Ÿ Existing sitting out area

Ÿ Garden of remembrance

Ÿ Existing building structure, including CLP secondary substation, toilets, pavilion and retaining walls

Ÿ Two (2) service halls

Ÿ One (1) cremation room with six (6) cremators

Ÿ One (1) transformer room

Ÿ One (1) underground oil fuel storage tank (9,092 L)

Ÿ One (1) mortuary

Ÿ One (1) machine room

Ÿ One (1) general store plus water tank

Ÿ One (1) dangerous goods store

Ÿ One (1) chimney (10 m in height)

12.1.3 Construction of the New Crematorium at the current location of the Existing Crematorium would include:

Ÿ One (1) cremator plant room housing six (6) cremators

Ÿ Three (3) fuel tanks (with total capacity of 34,000 L)

Ÿ Four (4) service halls (each can hold 120 people)

Ÿ One (1) pulverizing room

Ÿ One (1) mortuary

Ÿ One (1) office

Ÿ Toilets for public

Ÿ Ancillary service rooms including battery fork lift, transformer and switch room, emergency generator room and joss burners

Ÿ Four (4) automatic transportation systems for coffins and part of an underground service tunnel for coffin circulation

Ÿ Vehicular loading bay for coffin van, coach

Ÿ Landscape area

Ÿ Dangerous goods store

Ÿ Installation of temporary CLP electricity transformer at Phase II boundary

Ÿ Vehicular loading bay for coffin van, coach etc.

Ÿ Landscape area

12.1.4 The Project includes two designated projects, one is under the EIAO Schedule 2, Part II, Item 3, (decommissioning of clinical waste incinerator) and the other under EIAO Schedule 2, Part I, N4 (construction and operation of crematorium). An EIA Study Brief has been issued for the Project under Section 5(7)(a) of the EIAO (references no. ESB-102/2002).

12.2 Key Environmental Impact

A summary of the key environmental impacts arising from the Project is listed in Table 12.1.

Table 12.1Summary of Key Environmental Impacts

Key Environmental Impacts	Construction and Demolition Phase	Operation Phase
Air Quality	Phase I TSP: no predicted exceedance of EIAO-TM guideline Phase II TSP: no predicted exceedance of EIAO-TM guideline	RSP, CO, HCl, TOC, SO₂, NO₂, Hg, Dioxins, Excess cancer risk and odour : no predicted exceedance of respective acceptable air quality criteria
Noise	Phase I Without mitigation, exceedance in daytime noise standards might be found at SR2, SR3, SR4, SR5, SR6 and SR7. With mitigation measures, no predicted exceedance of EIAO-TM. Phase II Without mitigation, exceedance in daytime noise standards might be found at SR1, SR2, SR3, SR4, SR5 and SR6. With the recommended mitigation measures, no predicted exceedance of EIAO-TM.	No significant noise impact to nearby NSRs
Land Contamination	Less than 100 m³ of soil contaminated with tin/lead requiring disposal of at landfill*. With the recommended remediation measures, no adverse environmental impacts anticipated.	Not expected.
Waste Management	Surplus excavated materials: 2,100 m³ Public fill: 272 m³ C&D waste: 68 m³ ACM: small amount DCM: to be confirmed* HMCM: to be confirmed* PAHCM: to be confirmed* TPHCM: to be confirmed* PCBCM: to be confirmed* Chemical waste: small amount General refuse: small amount With the recommended mitigation measures, environmental impacts anticipated to be not significant.	Non-combustible residues: 64.8 kg/day Chemical Waste: dosed chemical (36 kg/day); particulate matter from cyclone separator (9 kg/day) and particulate matter from bag filter (48 kg/day) With the recommended mitigation measures, environmental impacts anticipated to be not significant.
Landscape and Visual	Landscape: A total of 132 nos. of trees/shrubs will be transplanted (including 4 species, 9 nos. of protected tree species) and 24 nos. of tree/shrub will be fell (none of them is protected species). Felling is regarded as last resort and the number of tree/shrub requiring felling is small. Net loss of soft landscape area: 970 m² Visual: not significant	Landscape: nil Visual: not significant
Water Quality	With the recommended mitigation measures, no adverse impact expected	Anticipated sewage volume is small (28 m³ per day) and the environmental impact is negligible.
Hazard to Life	Nil	3 fuel tanks (with total capacity of 34,000 L) will be installed. With the recommended safety measures, minimal hazard level expected

*Note : Prior to demolition but after decommissioning of the Existing Crematorium, supplementary site investigation will be carried out at sites currently not accessible. In addition, confirmatory site investigation will also be conducted to confirm the level of contamination before demolition of the Existing Crematorium. Through these supplementary/confirmatory site investigations, the remediation methodology of contaminated soil as well as handling and disposal options for contaminated materials can be confirmed.

12.3 Key Environmental Outcomes

Population and Environmental Sensitive Areas Protected

12.3.1 Environmental impacts arising from the Project, if not mitigated properly, might affect the nearby population during the construction, demolition and operation periods, for example, dust emission from construction and demolition activities, noise from construction machinery, emissions from chimney of the New Crematorium, etc. Dwellings within 500 m of the Project site boundary would contain a population of approximately 20,000, of which approximately 10,000 population is from schools. In addition there will be workers accessing the Project work sites during the construction and demolition phases. With proper implementation of the environmental mitigation measures, all such surrounding population and site staff will be protected from being adversely affected by the undesirable impacts.

Key Environmental Problems Avoided

12.3.2 In order to avoid or minimize the environmental impacts of the Project, a number of preventive measures have been recommended in the previous sections and are highlighted below:

Ÿ The use of dust suppression measures during the construction and demolition works will avoid causing nuisance to adjacent sensitive receivers and will also protect the health of on-site workers.

Ÿ During the construction and demolition phase, the surplus excavated materials will be reused on site as far as practical to minimize the amount of waste requiring disposal at landfill.

Ÿ Of the 156 trees/shrubs requiring removal during the construction and demolition works, majority (132) of them (including the 9 trees of protected species) will be transplanted to minimize the needs for tree felling.

Ÿ During commissioning of the new cremators, the total number of existing cremators in operation plus new cremators under trial-run will be maintained at no more than six at any time so as to avoid releasing additional air pollutants to the atmosphere.

Ÿ In the New Crematorium, the new cremators will be designed and equipped with advanced combustion technology with a view to minimizing the amount of air pollutant emissions. Dark smoke and odour emissions would be much improved compared with the existing Crematorium.

Ÿ All the noisy equipment of the New Crematorium (e.g. condensers of split-type air-conditioning units, radiators for cremators, general exhaust air fans and exhaust fans for the air pollution control system of the cremators) will be located in enclosed area so as to avoid causing noise nuisances to surrounding sensitive receivers.

Ÿ Adoption of air pollution control technology based on ‘dry process’ significantly reduces wastewater production.

Ÿ The 3 fuel tanks of the New Crematorium will be incorporated with adequate safety design features and provided with proper safety / precautionary measures to minimize the hazard level and to prevent fuel spillage/leakage, which will otherwise cause land contamination.

Adoption of Environmentally Friendly Designs

In addition to the aforementioned preventive measures, the New Crematorium has been designed with environmentally friendly features, including:

New Crematorium Layout	Rationale Behind/Benefits
· Cremators and related facilities of the New Crematorium to be located at the Southern side of the Project site.	· Main facilities of the Existing Crematorium are currently located at the Northern side of the Project site. To ensure provision of continuous services by the Existing Crematorium before commissioning of the New Crematorium, the cremators of the New Crematorium will have to be located at the Southern side of the Project site. While these new cremators will be moved from the Northern side to the Southern side, it has been assessed that the surrounding air quality will be in full compliance with the relevant standards and guidelines (see Section 4 for details).
· Chimney of the New Crematorium to be located at the Southern side of the Project site	· This proposed arrangement enables the shortest flue length, which can minimize the formation of undesirable pollutant formation inside the flue (e.g. dioxin). The adoption of the new cremators with state-of-the-art technology with air pollution control systems will be able to control the emission within acceptable standards (see Section 4 for details).
· 3-level terraces design	· As mentioned in Section 2.5.2, the Project site is sloping in nature. Therefore, the terrace design of the New Crematorium will be able to fully utilize the Project site and to avoid large scale excavation.
· Construction of perimeter road	· This is to provide easy access for the public. Adequate drop off area will be provided for various vehicles segregating vehicular access and parking for the public from those for hearse, mortuary and the diesel unloading to ensure safety for both the public and operators.

Compensation Areas Not Needed

12.3.3 No compensation area will be required for this Project.

Key Environmental Benefits of Environmental Protection Measures Recommended

12.3.4 The key environmental benefits of implementing the recommended preventive and mitigation measures during construction, demolition and operation phases can be summarized as follows:

Ÿ The air, noise, water quality, and visual impacts at the sensitive receivers will all be minimized or mitigated to within the acceptable norms.

Ÿ The amount of waste materials requiring disposal will be minimized through reduction, reuse and/or recycling of waste.

Ÿ The potential secondary environmental impacts arising from the handling and disposal of various types of waste materials as well as the potential impacts on the capacity of waste collection, transfer and disposal facilities will be controlled to acceptable levels.

Ÿ All the contaminated soil and waste materials, though expected to be of relatively small quantities, will be properly handled, treated on-site (if necessary) and disposed of, and hence minimizing the associated environmental impacts.

Ÿ The landscape impacts will be minimized by transplanting the most suitable specimens, including all of the protected species, to locations within the cemetery.

Ÿ The potential hazards of the new fuel tanks will be maintained at minimal level.

Potential New Environmental Benefits Due to the Reprovisioning of the Existing Crematorium

12.3.5 The potential new environmental benefits that will be brought about by reprovisioning of the Existing Crematorium, i.e., the Project, include the following:

Ÿ The Project will be able to help address the increasing cremation demand without construction of additional cremators, which will otherwise incur extra pollution loading

Ÿ Replacing the Existing Crematorium by the New Crematorium with improved cremation design and air pollution control technologies will lead to the betterment of local air quality

Ÿ Building the New Crematorium at the same location of the Existing Crematorium will provide a speedy means to replace the existing cremators, which are near the end of their serviceable life, because less time will be needed for making the infrastructure provisions

Ÿ Replacement of the existing cremators by the new cremators would more likely be accepted by the community as evidenced by the support of the Environmental Committee of the formerly Wong Tai Sin PDB in 1997

Ÿ The existing cremators are consuming about 547,000 L of diesel per year. The new cremators would be more fuel efficient and therefore utilize less natural resources.

Ÿ Spatial utilization in the Project site will be improved