 The island was connected to the Kowloon peninsula by the West Kowloon Reclamation in the 1990s to provide land for the construction of the road and railway network to the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, and for the Container Terminal 8 of Kwai Tsing Container Terminals.Stonecutters Island is the site of a large sewage treatment facility known as Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works.Since the facility was built in 2001, it has reduced the amount of E. coli in the nearby water by 99 percent, while other pollutants have been reduced by 70-80 percent, allowing coral to return to Victoria Harbour and make Hong Kong's beaches safe for swimming again.