Artificial reef to be built off Balluta Bay

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority yesterday unanimously approved a full development permit for the construction of an experimental artificial reef at offshore Balluta Bay in St Julians.

The project, which will be financed through the "planning gain" of the Portomaso project, has been commissioned by Mepa and will be carried out in partnership with the university.

The "planning gain" is a scheme through which Mepa asks for a sum of money from developers to be used towards a project which will benefit the community as compensation for the negative impact a major development could cause.

The main objective of this latest project is to test the feasibility of using concrete or globigerina limestone blocks for the construction of submerged artificial reefs in Maltese waters. The scheme comprises the deployment of two sets of artificial reefs in two different locations off St Julians.

One set will be located off St Julians Point and the other off St George's Bay/Dragonara Point.

Each set of artificial reefs will consist of an experimental reef made of concrete modules and a control reef made of identical globigerina limestone modules.

Deployment of two sets in different areas will tell if the pattern of colonisation of the reefs is a site specific phenomenon or whether it is site independent.

Two control sites, with similar environmental conditions but no reefs, will be used to compare and study the influence of the artificial structures on the sandy bottom.

Reefs and controls will be at a depth of about 40 metres. They will have several holes and cavities designed to attract fish and other marine organisms.

The project is expected to have one impact of major significance, namely the availability of new habitat, food and shelter.

Due to the nature of the proposal, monitoring will form an integral part of it. The results could then be fed back into the EIA process and be included in Mepa's research database.

This will be the first artificial reef of its kind in Malta. The other artificial reefs available are mainly wrecks.