Judicial protest over recycling plant upgrade

The Zejtun, Zabbar and Marsascala local councils yesterday filed a judicial protest against the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and WasteServ Malta asking them to stop the processing of an application for the redevelopment of the Sant'Antnin Recycling plant.

The local councils said they had long been objecting to Mepa about the outline development application made by WasteServ to be able to redevelop the existing plant.

WasteServ had filed an application with Mepa to redevelop its waste recycling plant at Sant'Antnin arguing that it would be spread over 18,000 square metres.

The company appointed SLR Consulting Limited to carry out a comparative study with another three sites proposed by Mepa. In the terms of reference, Mepa allowed WasteServ to recommend another site but it chose not to.

Despite the fact that WasteServ had applied for a development of 18,000 square metres, results computed by SLR showed that in reality 47,000 square metre were going to be developed. Consequently, the two sites proposed by Mepa as alternatives to Sant'Antnin could have never been accepted as they did not fulfil the requirements. This meant that the comparative study carried out by Mepa was merely cosmetic, the councils said.

Although it was clear that the application included a "cardinal error" it was still processed by the authority.

Besides, Mepa did not demand a correction or amendment to WasteServ's application and the report compiled by SLR claimed that Mepa agreed with the report. This suggested that the authority was preconditioned to uphold the application of WasteServ.

On September 5, Mepa called a public meeting when it knew that the local councils were still compiling their technical reports.

Following that meeting, a few days ago, they were informed that WasteServ's application was to be heard tomorrow at 2 p.m.

This, the local councils added, would be of prejudice to their rights as they were determined to proceed by arguing that the report contained serious mistakes and that Mepa had favoured WasteServ from the start.

In a statement to the media, the Committee Against the Proposed Recycling Plant strongly deplored Mepa's attitude of deciding on WasteServ's application tomorrow - just five days after the closing date within which the local councils, voluntary organisations and citizens could voice their objections to the second environmental statement.