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CONTENTS
1.3 Purposes
of Regular Marine Travel Routes (RMTR) Plan
1.4 Structure
of Regular Marine Travel Routes Plan
2.0 DESIGN OF REGULAR MARINE TRAVEL ROUTES
2.3 Design
Criteria of Regular Marine Travel Routes (RMTR)
2.4 Selected
Regular Marine Travel Routes
3.0 IMPLEMENTATIN AND MONITORING
3.2 Method of
Implementation and Monitoring
Figures |
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Figure 1 : |
Airport Height Restriction and Airport
Restricted Area |
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Figure 2 |
Existing Fairway Plan |
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Figure 3 |
Existing Marine Traffic Plan |
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Figure 4A |
Marine Route for Delivery of Public Fill
Materials |
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Figure 5A |
Marine
Route for Delivery of Precast and Prefabricated Units |
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Figure 6A |
Marine Route for General Usage and
Passenger |
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Figure 7A |
Marine Route for Delivery of Sandfill and
Rockfill Materials |
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Appendix A |
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Working Fleets Particulars |
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Appendix B |
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Dolphin Friendly ¡V To Do and Not To Do
Checklist |
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The HKBCF and TM-CLKL Southern Landfall is located on an artificial
island at the waters off the northeast of the Hong Kong International Airport
(HKIA), connecting Zhuhai and Macao via the HKLR and HZMB Main Bridge. The
HKNCF also connects to the HKIA as well as Northwest New Territories and North
Lantau via the TM-CLKL.
The project scope of this Project includes:
¡P
Construct 6km long cellular seawall including revetment and deposition
of dredged sediment;
¡P
Reclaim 150 ha of land up to +5.5mPD by using of sand and public fill
material;
¡P
Construct 4 nos of box culverts and extend one existing drainage outfall
from the eastern cost of airport island;
¡P
Apply reclamation treatment to control the residual settlement below
500mm during the design life;
¡P
Operate sorting facilities in Tseung Kwan O Area 137;
¡P
Collect public fill from designated barging points in Hong Kong;
¡P
Delivery of sandfill material from Pearl River Estuary; and
¡P
Delivery of semi-prefabricated sheet pile segment from Zhuhai to HKBCF
site.
The location of HKBCF is carefully chosen and avoid Chinese White
Dolphin (CWD) major active areas which are mainly on the western waters off the
Airport Island or between Sha Chau / Lung Kwu Chau and Fan Lau.
However, the potential of a cumulative marine traffic disturbance or
collision risk due to the work-related vessel traffic flow during
construction phase is considered in Ecological Impact for this Project. Therefore,
proper control of marine traffic disturbance on CWD, such as speed limits and
regular routes, will be applied as the mitigation measures to minimize impacts
of CWD during construction stage.
This plan presents the design principal, implementation and monitoring
method for RMTR.
Following this introductory sections, the remainder of the report is
presented as follows:
¡P
Section 2 presents the Design Criteria of
Regular Marine Travel Routes Plan;
¡P
Section 3 presents the Implementation and
Monitoring of Regular Marine Travel Routes Plan; and
¡P
Section 4 is the Summary and Conclusion
2.0
DESIGN OF REGULAR MARINE TRAVEL ROUTES
The following paragraphs presents
the introduction of construction activities and particular of working vessels that
will allocated in this Project in order to identify
the potential risks / impacts and mitigation measures to minimize impacts to
CWD during the construction stage.
a) Seawall Construction
There are three main types of seawalls will
be constructed along the boundary of HKBCF including:
¡P
Sloping Seawall in Portion D
This
is a revetment seawall mainly made up of natural rockfill material supported by
stone columns. Derrick barge with hopper for storing material will be generally
used for constructing of sloping seawall. Moreover, flat-topped barge equipment
with crawler crane and hopper barge can also be used for sloping seawall construction.
The barges used for this type seawall construction are non-self-propelled and
tug boat is required to assist traveling and maneuvering in Hong Kong Waters.
¡P
Blockwork Seawall in Portion D
This
is a vertical seawall made up of mass concrete seawall block also supported by
stone column. The working barges for this type seawall are same as sloping
seawall construction.
¡P
Cellular Structure Seawall in other Portions
The
construction of cellular structure seawall can be divided into two phases ¡V
steel sheet pile cell and revetment. Two installation methods, namely in-place
and semi-prefabricated method will be adopted in order to suit for site
constraints such as shallow water, airport height restriction requirement, etc.
For
the in-place method, sheet piles will be delivered to Work Area WA 4 or Zhuhai
for steel work modification. Afterward these material will be upload to the
derrick barges or flat-topped barges to tow the designated location for
installation. Template will be installed on-site for the assembling sheet piles
one-by-one to form a complete cellular structure. After driving cellular
structure to the design level, template will be removed. The above-mentioned
steps will be carried by either derrick barges or flat-topped barges.
Afterward, cellular structure will backfilled with dredged sediment or public
fill or sandfill by derrick barges, or flat-topped barges or pelican barges.
For
the semi-prefabricated method, sheet pile will be assembled into a quarter
segment and delivered to HKBCF site for installation. Large flat-topped barge
and tugs for delivering semi-fabricated cellular structure segment are
required. When the segment is delivered to site, special crane barge will be
used to unload the segments from large flat-topped barge. Afterward, the
special crane will assemble and install the cellular structure onsite. After
driving cellular structure to the design level, the following installation
procedures will be same as in-place method.
After
cellular structure is installed and backfilled with suitable material,
revetment can be constructed as similar as sloping seawall construction.
b) Reclamation and Surcharging
The
reclamation works are divided into two stages, namely underwaterfill (below
+2.5mPD) and earthworks fill (up to formation level +5.5mPD).
The
underwaterfill mainly are sandfill material with maximum 30% of public fill
while cellular structure seawall are completed except marine access opening.
The placement of underwater fill will be executed by pelican barges flat-topped
barges with crawler crane and hopper barges.
The
earthwork fill will be sandfill material in Portion A, D and Part of B, and the
remaining Portions are the public fill material. The delivery of earthwork fill
material will be made use of marine fleets including pelican barges, derrick
barges and flat-topped barges with crawler crane. The backhoes, excavators and
lorry trucks will be used for spreading and building up earthwork fill to the
design formation levels.
Surcharge
fill are mainly public fill with small quantities of sandfill which is the
preset of earthwork fill owning to consolidation settlement effect. After
surcharging work is completed, the surplus material will be uploaded to the
derrick barges and flat-topped barges for the disposal of to proper fill bank
facilities.
c) Stone Column Installation Works
The quantities of stone column are quite significant
that required numbers of special barges to catch up the construction programme.
One of our solutions to minimize the number of marine fleets is to equip
maximum four sets of vibrolances on a flat-topped barge. Based on
aforementioned set up, one derrick
barge or flat-topped barge equipped with excavator will be used as material
storage onsite. The stone material will be delivered to site by pelican barges
and uploaded to the material storage barge. At the construction peak, five sets
stone column installation team will be allocated for catching up the tight
installation programme.
d) Dredging Works and Temporary Storage Area
for Dredged Sediment
The volume of dredged sediment is relatively
insignificant but requires to re-deposition onsite. Closed bucket dredger and
derrick barges will be allocated for dredging marine sediment and
re-depositioning onsite respectively.
e) Culverts Construction in Portion D
Four culverts will be cast in Zhuhai and
delivered segment-by-segment to site by semi-submersible barges to site for
installation.
f) Other Marine Based Construction Activities
Other marine based construction activities
include installation of vertical drain, laying of geotextile, placing of stone
blanket and sand blanket, etc. These works will be carried out by derrick
barges and flat-topped barge equipped with excavator. And the material such as
sandfill and stone will be delivered to site by using of pelican barges.
Maneuvering and anchoring of working fleets will be assisted by tug boats and
anchor boats.
g) Site Investigation
Flat-topped barges are the main work
fleeting for the site investigation work in the vicinity of HKBCF site.
h) Storage Yards in Works Areas WA2 and WA4
Two small scale storage yards are set up
near to the HKBCF, namely WA2 and WA4. Geotextile, vertical drain and silt
curtain, steel members and sheet piles, etc. will be stored in WA2 and WA4
which material will be delivered to working areas by derrick barges and
flat-topped barges equipped with excavator.
Small quantities of public fill generated from XRL project is stored in WA4 and
will be depostioned in HKBCF as earthwork fill by
derrick barges and flat-topped barges.
i)
Marine
Access Facilities in Works Areas WA2 and WA4 and HKBCF Site
Marine access points will be set up in Works
Areas WA2 and WA4 for the purposes of routine marine transportation to site
staff, material and consumables. Transportation boats, sampans and small tug
boats will use these facilities for carrying site staff.
j) Other Marine Based Project Related Working
Activities
Other marine based working activities
including site investigation, surveying, water qualities monitoring, dolphin
monitoring, patrolling, marine traffic control, emergency measures, and the
like will be carried out onsite. Transportation boats, sampans and small tug
boats will use these facilities for carrying site staff.
The ship particulars of different types of
working fleets deployed for the construction of HKBCF are attached in the
Appendix A. Considering potential impact to CWD, these working fleets can be
divided into three categories:
a) Non-self-propelled Working Fleets in the
vicinity of HKBCF site
The working fleeting classed in this
category include derrick barges, flat-topped barges, special crane barges,
geotextile laying barge (modified by flat-topped barge), etc. Tug boats and
anchor boats will be used to tow and to assist the positioning and anchoring.
As these working fleets will mainly station within HKBCF boundary and the
maneuvering or positioning will be carried out in slow speed, the potential
impact to CWD will be low.
b) Self-propelled Working Fleets in the
vicinity of HKBCF site
The working fleeting classed in this
category include tug boats, anchor boats, passenger boats, sampan and pelican barges. As the construction
activities are mainly carried out in the vicinity of HKBCF site, and since most
of working fleets will be
slow-moving (around 5 knots up to maximum 10 knots), therefore traffic
disturbance or collision risk will be low in this cases.
c) Delivery material to HKBCF reclamation
project
The working fleeting classed in this
category include tug boats, anchor boats, passenger boats, sampan and pelican barges. The potential of a
cumulative marine traffic disturbance or collision risk due to the large-sized
and slow-moving (around 5 to 10 knots) working fleets traffic flow during construction
stage will affect the CWD. Therefore, controlling of marine traffic disturbance
on CWD such as speed limits and regular routes will be implemented.
The design criteria of RMTR are summarized
as follows:
a)
Hotspots
of Chinese White Dolphin in Brothers Island
Latest available data of monitoring of
marine mammals in Hong Kong Waters collected under the Project and issued by
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department will be used as reference
information to align the marine travel routes of project related work fleets.
The fundamental principle is that the routes will not go through the dolphin
hotspots in Brothers Island.
b)
Existing
Navigation Channel and Marine Traffic
Further to the safe navigation requirement
in-law and the enclosed Figure 2 Existing Fairway Plan, the design of marine
travel routes will be followed. Existing fairways such as Hung Hom Fairway,
Central Fairway, Northern Fairway and Ma Wan Fairway as well as Urmston
Road Channel will be selected as the main travel routes for delivery of
material to HKBCF site.
Attached Figure 3 ¡V Existing Marine Traffic Plan
shows the existing traffic flow in the vicinity of HKBCF site and Urmston Road Channel. Due to such large volume of marine
traffic, the project related working fleets are required to draw extra
attention and safety awareness while passing through this region. The marine
travel routes will be locally adjusted so as to minimize the potential risks of
marine traffic incident.
c)
Practice
of Navigation Safe
The licensed captain is the authorized
person to control the working fleeting under safe marine operation. He will
follow all safe navigation requirement and international practice with
assistance from navigation aids as well as support from marine traffic control
team of Marine Department.
The marine travel route will be adjusted
locally to cater for any incident so as to ensure safe navigation. For example,
containership will occupy Ma Wan Channel and Urmston
Road Channel, therefore small project related working fleets needs to ¡§give
way¡¨ to such large-sized oceangoing vessels when the travel routes are overlapped.
Other marine operators such as speed boats, turbo jets, container vessels,
river trade vessels and the like may also affect the marine travel routes of
project related working fleets.
Marker buoys and navigation buoys are the
best marine based indicators to demarcate the proper navigation channel and are
very useful tool to assist captain to determine the proper travel routes under
real situation and any unexpected incidents.
Moreover, the navigation will also be
affected by natural constraints such as wind, current, wave, etc. which may
also affect the marine travel routes locally.
d)
Restricted
Areas and Height Restriction of Hong Kong International Airport
Further to Figure 1 Airport Height
Restriction and Airport Restricted Area, there are seven restricted areas in
the vicinity of Hong Kong International Airport where working fleets are not
allowed to pass through unless authorization is granted. Moreover, the airport
height restriction limit will also govern the marine travel routes of working
fleets for the delivery of prefabricated cellular structure from Mainland China
to HKBCF site.
During the delivery of prefabricated
cellular structure, the air draft of working fleet will be around +45mPD which
exceeds the limit of airport height restriction requirement. Therefore, the
route cannot go directly from north to HKBCF site. Having considered the safety
requirements of aviation and airport operation, an agreement was made amongst
Marine Department, Civil Aviation Department, Airport Authority Hong Kong and
Highways Department that the route
is realigned to go east direction further until passing over the proposed
marine park in Brothers Island, and then turn back to HKBCF. The numbers of
trips for this operation will approximate twice a week for ten months from
April 2012.
e)
Other
Site Constraints
Existing marine parks, anchorage areas in
Sham Shui Kok and Tuen Mun and the like are also
considered during designing the proper marine routes for this Project.
Based
on the abovementioned designed criteria, the marine travel routes for different
construction activities are designed and presented in the following figures.
¡P
Figure 4A : Marine Route for Delivery of
Public Fill Materials
¡P
Figure 5A : Marine Route for Delivery of
Precast and Prefabricated Units
¡P
Figure 6A : Marine Route for General Usage
and Passenger
¡P
Figure 7A : Marine Route for Delivery of
Sandfill and Rockfill Materials
The main
marine travel routes will be from the north entering to HKBCF site. In order to
minimize number of trips passing through those ecological sensitive areas,
large storing capacity work fleets will be deployed. In addition, navigation
speed for those fleets will be reduced to maximum 5 knots while approaching the
region near to marine parks.
However,
these marine travel routes will be locally modified for the purpose of catering
for the sighting of CWD and safe marine operation under real marine traffic
conditions, weather conditions and any unexpected incident.
Concerning
the marine travel route of pre-fabricated units from Mainland China to Hong
Kong (Figure 5A), this is the most critical route which is governed by
different requirements such as marine parks, dolphin hotspots, airport height
restriction (AHR) requirement, restricted areas around airport, vessels
anchorage areas and existing navigation channel. As mentioned in Section 2.3
d), the air draft of working fleet for delivering prefabricated units will
infringe the official AHR if directly entered HKBCF site from northern
direction as similar as main marine travel routes. This issue was raised and
discussed with different statutory authorities. Eventually it is agreed that prolonged
marine travel route to be adopted - go further east until pass over proposed
marine park in Brothers Island and turn back to HKBCF site ¡V so as to minimize potential
impact to CWD within Brothers Island Waters. The finalized marine travel route
will pass through the south east corner of proposed marine park in Brothers
Island therefore precautionary and mitigation measures shall be implemented.
The route will shift along the edge of proposed marine parks as much as
practical. And the travelling speed will keep not exceeding 5 knots when crossing the
edge of the proposed marine park.
3.0 IMPLEMENTATIN AND MONITORING
The
Project Director is the ultimate person for minimizing any ecological impacts
including dolphin monitoring and marine traffic control. The supervising staff
including Project Manager, Construction Manager, Superintendent, Site Foreman
and the representative of subcontracts and specialist will assist the Project
Director onsite to implement all precautionary and mitigation measures approved
by the Statutory Authority and the Engineer.
The
construction works are divided into onsite and offsite works. Onsite works
include all construction activities in the vicinity of HKBCF site such as
seawall construction and reclamation. As the working fleets are mainly
stationed within the site boundary and occasionally will be relocated to suit
the working progress, the potential impacts to CWD will be low.
Offsite
works are mainly the delivery of material such as sandfill and rockfill from Pearl
River Estuary, public fill for barging points in Hong Kong, precast or
prefabricated unit from Pearl River Estuary. As these working fleets will pass
through Urmston Road Channel, marine parks and
hotspots of CWD in Northeast and Northwest of Lantau Island, therefore tight
marine travel routes control will be implemented.
i)
Public fill barges from barging points in
Hong Kong
All
barges for transporting public fill will be equipped with Automatic Identification
System (AIS) for track logging of vessels.
ii)
Sandfill and rockfill barges from Pearl
River Estuary
GPS
system or course recorder system will be installed for the purposes of recording
the marine travel route.
iii)
Precast and prefabricated unite from Pearl
River Estuary
GPS
system or course recorder system will be installed for the purposes of
recording the marine travel route.
iv)
Other project related working fleets
Tug
boats will install GPS system or course recorder system for recording marine
travel route during tow operation.
The
daily record of marine travel route of offsite working fleets will be collected
and filed by the supervising staff for inspection and monitoring purposes. Warning
will be noticed to the captain and
his shipping company or material supplier if vessel track log showed the
approved marine travel route is not followed.
a)
Considerations
of Operation Procedure
The
main issue with the Chinese White Dolphin (Sousa chinensis)
is a moving vessel striking and injuring an animal during the period of
travel. Information regarding the locations of frequent sighting
near the proposed vessel routes indicated that the following would also be
needed to minimize the chance of a vessel striking a dolphin.
i)
On leaving the entrance in the silt curtain,
all vessels will travel at a speed no greater than 5 knots for a distance of 250m
then at a speed no greater than 10 knots for a distance of at least 1.5km away.
Vessels can then increase speed after that distance unless other restrictions
apply.
ii)
All vessels travelling on eastern routes
will follow a northern heading for at least 2.5 km before turning east. These
vessels will also be required to follow the 5 knot speed limit for 250m and 10
knot speed restriction for at least 1.5km of this travel.
iii)
When entering the area around Pillar Point,
vessels need to slow to a speed no greater than 10 knots when within 2km of
this area.
iv)
If any dolphins are sighted within 250m 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.
v)
The north-western silt curtain entrance will
be temporarily blocked off with a section of silt curtain. This will apply
until the current dolphin visitation to this area is thoroughly investigated
after the installation of the silt curtain.
vi)
This will apply until current and up-dated
dolphin sighting data is processed by the ET. It is expected that the works and
the inclusion of the silt curtain will change the dolphin activity in this area
so it may be necessary to modify the above instructions and possibly the routes
in the future. The ET will keep the Site Engineer and the Project Team informed
of any changes needed
b)
Skipper
Training
All captains
of project related working fleets passing around the West Lantau waters and
near the Brothers Islands and the supervising staff should undergo training to
learn about local dolphins and porpoises. They should be trained to be aware of
the protocol for ¡§dolphin friendly¡¨ vessel operation (refer to the Code of Conduct
for Dolphin Watching Activities from AFCD). The ¡§To DO and Not to Do Checklist¡¨
is attached in Appendix B for more details.
This
training course will be provided to captains within three working days after
start working onsite and refreshment course will be provided in every quarter. The
dolphin specialist will design and prepare training material and update time to
time during the course of construction. Moreover, dolphin specialist and / or
his assistant with MMO qualification will conduct the training and refreshment
courses so as to ensure good practice of dolphin friendly vessel operation.
This RMTR Plan presents a review of major
construction works, working fleets particulars and design criteria of marine
travel routes. Based on this review, preferred marine travel routes for
different construction works are recommended. Method of implementation and
monitoring as well as precautionary measures are proposed to minimize any
potential impacts to Chinese White Dolphin during the course of reclamation
works.
Figures
Appendix A
Working Fleets Particulars
Appendix B
Dolphin Friendly ¡V To Do and Not To Do Checklist
Dolphin
Friendly ¡V TO DO and NOT TO DO CHECKLIST
TO DO
1) Always
slow down to no-wake speed, and stop if dolphins appear directly ahead within
100m.
2) Keep
vessel at a slow, steady speed without sudden course changes. Boat speed should
not exceed 10 knots.
3) Never
conduct reverse throttling when dolphins are nearby.
NOT TO
DO
1) When
observing dolphins near pair trawlers, the project related working fleets
should not
a)
go near the marker buoy of the trawl net;
b)
move away suddenly after trawlers hauled up
the net.
2) Do not
litter or discharge any pollutants into the sea
3) Never
touch, swim with, or feed dolphins
4) Never
chase or intercept the course of dolphins, separate mothers and calves or ¡¥corner¡¦
dolphins
5) Never approach dolphins head on