Letters to the editor of South China Morning Post - Response to reader's letter on air quality monitoring
I refer to the joint letter of Professor Alexis Lau and Professor Bill Barron entitled “Air quality will suffer if bureaucrat heads department again, 16 October” and feel obliged to dispel the misunderstanding.
Be faithful to science is the core value of the Environmental Protection Department. The dedication of our colleagues to air quality monitoring is a testimony to it.
We have made substantial investments and enhancements to our air quality monitoring network in order to generate the necessary evidence for formulating the air quality management strategy. The chemical speciation programme for PM2.5 commenced in 2000 is part of this evidence-gathering effort.
It is regrettable that our recent attempt to streamline the chemical speciation programme has been misconstrued. We recently consulted the air science academics who are major users of data collated from the programme on our findings that there is scope to adjust the monitoring stations without adversely affecting the data representativeness. Despite our indication, unfortunately some have mistaken the consultation as a notification of a foregone decision and speculated on the basis of the decision making.
In our recent meeting held on 19 October with Professor Alexis Lau and other academics, a consensus was reached on the scope of streamlining the PM2.5 chemical speciation programme while upholding its scientific robustness and usefulness.
We would like to assure your readers that the Department has adopted a professional, scientific, evidence-based approach in undertaking its duties for environmental protection and will continue to do so.
Shermann Fong (Dr)
Principal Environmental Protection Officer (Air Science)