In February 2005, work was undertaken to reduce water loss from the lakes and canals in the Old Summer Palace by covering a total of of the beds with a membrane to reduce seepage. The park administration argued the prevention of water loss saves the park money, since water would have to be added to the lakes only once per year instead of three times. However, opponents of the project, such as Professor Zhengchun Zhang of Lanzhou University, feared the measure will destroy the ecology of the park, which depends on the water seepage from the lakes and the connection between the lakes and the underground water system. It is also feared the reduced seepage from the lakes will disturb Beijing's underground water system which is already suffering from depletion. There are also concerns about the gardens, which is a designated heritage site in the city of Beijing, changing their natural appearance. This issue, when brought up with the general public several weeks later, immediately caused an uproar from the press and became one of the hottest debates on the Internet in China due to the still painful memory of foreign humiliation epitomised in the destruction of the Old Summer Palace. The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (BEPB) recently conducted an assessment of the environmental impact of the measure. A partial copy of the palace, the "New Yuanming Gardens" (圆明新园; 圓明新園), was built in 1997 in the southern city of Zhuhai in Guangdong province, as an amusement park of , including an lake. Up to the present, many relics which were taken from the Old Summer Palace remain in foreign museums and private collections. Although the Chinese government has tried to recover them, only a few statuettes from the Garden of Eternal Spring have actually been returned. Seven of the 21 columns displayed at the KODE Art Museums in Bergen, Norway were returned to Peking University in 2014 as part of a deal set up by alumnus Huang Nubo, a real estate developer who donated 10 million Norwegian kroner (US$1.6 million) to the museum, according to the China Daily. It is still debated in China whether to apply for an inclusion of the Old Summer Palace on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Transport The ruins of the Old Summer Palace remain open to the public and are an important tourist attraction in Haidian District, the Yuanmingyuan Park. They can