These basic recommendations in further discussions evolved into an integrated scheme of tremendous size and complexity, covering the entire eastern half of the New Territories. It included a series of service reservoirs and pumping stations along a main pipeline extending from the Red China border to Kowloon. These would be linked to Plover Cove and Hebe Haven by another system of tunnels. Virtually all the surface rains in the eastern end of the New Territories would be fed through catchwaters into the two main reservoirs. Since Hebe Haven might collect more summer rain than it could hold, the excess water could be conveyed by tunnel to Plover Cove, with its much larger capacity. Even the water brought by pipeline from Red China would be fed into the integrated system. Three balancing reservoirs, to maintain a controlled and even flow of water, and two large new filtration plants, to purify the water before it made the last stage of its journey to urban consumers, were to become part of the system. Many of the connecting pipelines were to be designed to convey water in either direction, making the utmost use of storage capacity. By these refinements of the original recommendations, the capacity of the integrated scheme would be raised to 100 million gallons a day when it came into full use. The first stage of the gigantic new system had made remarkable progress by the early part of 1962. The Lion Rock Tunnel had already been begun by cutting through the side of a mountain to connect the filtration plant at Sha Tin with a pair of service reservoirs in Kowloon. The tunnel, 32 feet in diameter, will carry three pipelines, each four feet in diameter, and a two-lane, 24-foot-wide auto road three-fourths of a mile through Lion Rock Mountain. Excavation work on the Lion Rock Reservoirs, with a total capacity of 41 million gallons, had almost been completed. At the other end of the tunnel, at the Sha Tin filtration plant and pumping station, a hillside site as extensive as four football fields had been excavated and the spoil was being used to fill a shallow inlet. Construction of ten miles of tunnels and the 10-foot-high Lower Shing Mun Dam were well advanced. Meanwhile, engineers were probing the soil structure at the entrance of Plover Cove. Working from barges in 35 feet of water, they bored down through 35 feet of soft clay, reaching to almost twice that depth before they found impermeable clay and rock to form the foundation for their earth-fill dam. When complete, the dam will extend 35 feet above the water and 70 feet below it, with grouting to provide a watertight foundation. The main section of the dam will cross the cove’s wide entrance. Two shorter sections will close off side entrances to the cove.