Certified by Environmental Team Leader
Verified by Independent Environmental
Checker
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Contract No. HY/2013/04 Hong Kong¡VZhuhai¡VMacao Bridge Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities ¡V Infrastructure Works Stage II (Southern Portion) |
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regular
marine travel routes plan |
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Position |
Name |
Signature |
Date |
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Prepared by Environmental Officer |
Billy Lao |
|
14 September 2017 |
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Checked by Site Agent |
Jason Chung |
14 September 2017 |
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Approved by Project Manager |
Eddie Tang |
14 September 2017 |
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Table
of Contents
2.0 Scope of Works under
Contract HY/2013/04
3.0 Design Consideration
for Regular Marine Travel Routes
3.1 Design Criteria for
Marine Travel Routes
3.1.1 .. Hotspot
of Chinese White Dolphin in Brothers Island
3.1.2 .. Practice
of Navigation Safety
3.1.3 .. Existing
Navigation Channel and Marine Traffic
3.1.4 .. Airport
Height Restriction (AHR)
3.1.5 .. Other
Site Limitations
3.2 Construction Activities
involving the Regular Marine Travel Routes
4.1 Hotspot of Chinese
White Dolphin in Brothers Island
4.2 Practice of Navigation
Safety
4.3 Existing Navigation
Channel and Marine Traffic
4.4 Airport Height
Restriction (AHR)
5.0 Method of
Implementation and Monitoring for RMTR
5.2 Method of
Implementation and Monitoring
List of Appendices
Appendix
A ¡V Site Location Plan
Appendix
B ¡V Existing Navigation Channel Layout
Appendix
C ¡V Proposed Marine Travel Route
Appendix
D ¡V Airport Height Restriction / Airport
Approach Restricted Area Layout
Appendix
E ¡V Information for Working Vessels
Appendix
F ¡V Information for Site Investigation
During
the tendering stage of the Hong Kong ¡V Zhuhai ¡V Macao Bridge, Hong Kong
Boundary Crossing Facilities ¡V Infrastructure Works Stage II (Southern Portion)
Contract No. HY/2013/04 (the Contract), the location for loading/unloading
pre-cast bridge segments transported by sea was not accessed and assumed to be
share use with other Contract, i.e. HY/2013/02.
Until
commencement of the Contract and actual access to different portions on BCF
Island, original loading/unloading point which was managed by other Contract
might not be effective. Under this circumstance, the marine travel route shall
be considered and established to cater with transportation of the pre-cast bridge
segments under this Contract.
Pursuant
to the Environmental Permit (Permit no. EP-353/2009/K) Condition 2.8 and
conforming to the requirement in the EIA Report, marine travel routes of
vessels moving to and from the Contract work sites shall be prepared and
verified by the IEC and submitted to Environmental Protection Department (EPD)
at least 2 weeks before the commencement of the construction. Any subsequent
changes to the regular routes shall be verified by the IEC. Therefore, a Regular Marine Travel
Routes Plan (RMTRP) is prepared and submitted.
This
RMTRP shall describe the design consideration for
selection of regular marine travel routes, method of implementation &
monitoring and precautionary measures to minimize any potential impacts to
Chinese White Dolphin (CWD) and the existing navigation channel.
Pursuant
to EPD¡¦s memo Ref. No. (20) in Ax(9) to EP2/G/A/146 Pt.2 dated 24 November
2016, the marine travel route shall be adjusted whenever opportunity arises in
the course of future realignment / removal of perimeter silt curtains as to
avoid encroaching onto the proposed Brother Marine Park as far as
possible. Since the silt curtain previously
maintained by the Reclamation Contract, HY/2010/02, was removed in June 2017,
an updated regular marine travel route is proposed to fulfill the requirement
of EPD.
Ø Construction of vehicular
bridges and at-grade roads at south of Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities
(HKBCF) Island
Ø Construction of associated
street lighting, street furniture, road marking, road signage, box culverts and
outfalls, drainage, sewerage, fresh water and flushing water supply, irrigation,
landscape, electrical and mechanical (E&M), utilities and services works
Ø Provisioning of civil
engineering works and power supply for Traffic Control and Surveillance System
(TCSS)
The above works are land-based. Therefore, no marine
activity for this contract is involved except the marine transportation of
pre-cast bridge segments. There will be no transportation of construction
waste, passengers or other general use using marine vessel. The anticipated
frequency of delivery of segment is three (3) times per week.
The site location plan is
shown in Appendix A.
A hotspot of CWD in
Brothers Island, located at North-east of Lantau, was identified in the Environmental Monitoring & Audit (EM&A) Manual
of the Contract. The marine travel
routes shall minimize the extent of going through the hotspot of CWD to prevent
clashing of dolphin by the working vessels of the Contract.
The marine travel route shall
be adjusted to accommodate with any natural constraints such as wind, current
and wave as well as other marine operators such as speed boats, turbo jets,
container vessels and river trade vessels to ensure safe navigation with proper
travel routes.
Marker buoys and navigation
buoys will be adopted to demarcate navigation channel. The captain shall use marker buoys and
navigation buoys to determine proper travel routes based on actual situation
and any unexpected incidents.
Existing navigation channels,
Ma Wan Channel and Urmston Road Channel, are located east and north-east to the
HKBFC Island respectively. These
navigation channels are main inshore passage connecting northwest end of the
Victoria Harbour and the month of Pearl River. The layout of the navigation channels
are shown in Appendix B.
In accordance with
regulation 23 of the Shipping and Port Control Regulation (Cap. 313A), there
are eight (8) Areas designated as Airport Approach Restricted Areas. The details of the Areas are as follows
(also refer to Appendix
C for map):
Except with the permission
of the Director of Marine Department,
(i) No vessel shall enter or
pass through Area No. 1, 2, 3, 4.
(ii) No vessel which has a height
exceeding 15 m above the sea level shall enter or pass through Area No. 5, 6.
(iii) No vessel which has a
height exceeding 30 m above the sea level shall enter or pass through Area No.
7, 8.
The airport height
restriction shall also govern the travel routes of pre-cast bridge segments
transportation. The layout of AHR
is shown in Appendix D.
The draft of the barge is a
critical issue for determining the loading and unloading point due to the
existing seabed level of the BCF coast is quite shallow and varies.
Location of marine park
shall be considered in the planning of potential marine travel route. It is recognized that one existing
marine park is located at Sha Chau/Lung Kwu Chau and one approved marine park is
located at Brothers Island.
Location of anchorage areas
shall be considered when deciding the potential marine travel route. The potential marine travel route may
pass through two (2) anchorage areas.
One of the anchorage areas is located at Sham Shui Kok, approximate 1.5
km east to the BCF artificial island.
The other one is known as Tuen Mun Immigration Anchorage, which is
approximate 4 km north to the BCF artificial island.
The vehicular bridges construction requires to
transport the pre-cast bridge segments from Zhongshan pre-cast fabrication yard
to Hong Kong for installation. The completed segments shall be transported to
Hong Kong by the marine travel method. The transportation is tentatively
scheduled to start in November 2016 and completed in February 2018 subjected to
actual site possession progress. The general layout of the selected marine
travel route shall refer to Appendix C.
In instance of the occurrence
of silt curtain installation/re-deployment works, a dolphin exclusion zone of
250 m beyond the works area shall be implemented.
Two marine travel routes from
the fabrication yard in Zhongshan to the Site are considered and are as shown
in Appendix C.
This section will identify the precautionary measures of the above mentioned
design considerations and present the selection of the routes
The
major ecological risk of marine vessel is a moving vessel striking and injuring
CWD during travel and navigation. Information regarding the locations of
frequent sighting of CWD near the proposed vessel route indicated that the following
measures shall also be adopted to minimize the chance of a vessel striking
marine mammals.
Ø
A vessel speed limit control has been proposed by
the EM&A Manual of the contract.
As a minimum requirement, a speed limit of 5 knots shall be enforced
within boundaries of the Sha Chau/Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park and the Approved
Brothers Marine Park (BMP) to prevent dolphin from clashing by the working
vessels.
Ø
If any dolphins are sighted within 250
m of a vessel then the vessel will
slow to a
speed no greater than 5
knots for at
least 3
minutes after the last sighting.
Ø All captains and the
supervisory staff shall conduct training to learn about local dolphins and
porpoises. They shall be trained to be aware of the protocol for ¡§dolphin
friendly¡¨ vessel operation. All the relevant training records shall be
submitted to SO, IEC/ENPO at monthly interval to demonstrate the conformance to
the EM&A documents.
The licensed captain shall
be the only authorized person to control the working fleets in accordance with
all safe navigation requirement and international practice with assistance from
navigation aids and marine traffic control team of Marine Department.
Skipper training will be
provided to licensed captain. The
training will cover local dolphins and porpoises and operation procedures of
potential situation encountered when using the marine travel route. Detailed contents of the training and
the qualification of the trainer will be submitted to the Environmental Project
Office upon the confirmation of marine logistic company to be hired.
The width of
Urmston Road is approximate 3 km width. The main fairway is located at northern
side of Urmston Road, which is close to the coast of Tuen Mun. The proposed marine
travel route is located at the southern side of Urmston Road (north to the BCF
Island) to avoid clash with the heavy marine traffic.
It is anticipate that segment
delivery barge will be adopted for the transportation of pre-cast bridge
segments. Since the maximum height of the barge used during travel is approximate
18 m above sea level (refer Appendix E for details), the proposed marine travel route
shall not entry the AHR with the minimum height restriction of 30 m.
The maximum draft of the
working vessels is approximate 2.3 m; however, the actual operating draft of
the working vessels will be limited at approximate 2.0 m to avoid unpredictable
shallow sea bed condition. With reference to the Nautical Chart (dated January
2016) prepared by BMT Asia Pacific Ltd., the water depth at east of the BCF
Island (refer to Appendix
F for details) varies from 4 m to 10 m, with occasional shallow sea bed
with water depth of 2.4 m.
Therefore, the chance for vessels to get stranded at the proposed marine
travel route is minimal along the east side of the BCF Island. The shallowest sea bed is located south
to the BCF Island. The shallowest water depth is 2.3 m. With the approximate 0.3
m buffer, the working vessels may still risk stranding at unknown occasional
high spot on the sea bed during the occurrence of low tide event. To avoid stranding of the working vessels,
the Contractor shall schedule the delivery of materials in accordance with the
predicted tides of Hong Kong Observatory.
All working vessels shall travel into work site at high tide in order to
reduce sediment plume at shallow water of the works area and minimize mooring
at Sham Shui Kok.
The proposed marine travel
route does not pass through the boundary of Sha Chau/Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park. The proposed route marine travel route
is at the east of the BCF Island and western side to the approved BMP (as shown
in Appendix B). To avoid from entering the approved BMP,
the proposed marine travel route shall be close to the seawall at east of the
BCF Island as possible. The trips
of delivering shall also be reduced by selecting a possible largest size barge.
The proposed route shall be
strictly followed. No entry of BMP
will be allowed. In order to avoid
any deviation from the route due to heavy traffic of other contracts at the
east of the BCF islands, the following measures shall be maintained:
1. Forecast and develop a delivery
schedule with actual delivery date and time.
2. Notify other contracts the delivery
schedule during the monthly marine works liaison meeting to ensure the proposed
route is not obstructed during the delivery.
3. If the proposed route is
accidentally obstructed during the delivery, the delivery shall be stopped
immediately. The responsible
foreman/engineer shall inform the parties caused the obstruction and continue
the delivery only after the obstruction has been cleared.
The
Project Director is the decisive person for minimizing environmental impacts
from marine operation. Works Supervisors including Site Manager, Project
Manager, Site Agent, Construction Manager, Engineer, Site Forman and the
representative of subcontractors will assist the Project Director onsite to
implement all precautionary and mitigation measures during the whole construction.
The
construction of vehicular bridge is divided into onsite and offsite works.
Onsite
works include piling construction, pile caps, piers, parapets and E&M
installation. No marine works are involved for those onsite works.
Offsite
works mainly comprise the transportation and delivery of concrete pre-cast
segments from Zhongshan pre-cast fabrication yard to Hong Kong for
installation.
All
barges and other vessels including tug boat, anchor boat and other
self-propelled working fleets shall be equipped with Very High Frequency or/and
GPS for track logging of vessels.
Induction
training shall be provided to the captain and crew of the shipping
company. The content of training
shall cover the location of the proposed marine travel route, anchorage areas,
the boundary of adjacent marine parks and its corresponding speed limit. Training shall also introduce the sign
of encountering CWD and the applicable precautionary measure of striking CWD,
such as, speed limit. Review
training shall be provided to the captain and crew on a six-month basis to
increase their awareness.
The
daily record of marine travel route of all offsite working fleets shall be
collected and filed by the supervising staff for inspection and monitoring
purposes. Graphical plots of all the vessel tracks overlaid on Hong Kong base
map shall be provided at monthly interval to the ER, ETL, IEC/ENPO to
demonstrate the conformance of the vessel to the proposed route. If any vessel
track log indicating the selected and approved marine travel route is not
followed, formal warning shall be issued to the captain and his shipping
company or material supplier.