In his introverted contribution Size Does Matter (February 15), Environment Minister George Pullicino insists that only a fraction of Malta's 210,000 tonnes of municipal waste will end up in the proposed refurbished Sant'Antnin treatment plant.
However, he does not tell us what the government intends to do with the remaining sizeable fraction of waste which, according to Mr Pullicino, will not be directed to Sant'Antnin plant. Will the remaining 91,000 tonnes of organic waste and 84,000 tonnes of non-biodegradable waste go to a landfill? If so, this would hardly be a long-term solution, for we are told that the proposed Ghallis landfill (which was supposedly designed for 20 years service) will now serve for only seven years!
What will happen to this sizeable portion of municipal waste? We do not know because Mr Pullicino and his small circle of people continue to conceal the truth from the public. Apparently, the government will be constrained to follow Labour's policy and build other waste treatment plants to accommodate this remaining waste.
Notwithstanding this, the minister has not told us where these new plants will be located. Instead, he chooses to ask Labour for advice on where to locate the new plants, thereby acknowledging what has been obvious to most people, that this government is incapable of making technical decisions and now lies stranded by its own incompetence.
Lurking behind the government's reticence is also the spectre of mass incineration of waste which for now is being kept hidden from the public. This option has recently raised its head again. Will Mr Pullicino tell us where he intends to locate waste incinerators or does he intend to pursue his usual unilateral decision-making and imposition?
Reticence seems to have become the modus operandi of the government. As yet, the minister has not responded to my challenge made in several of my articles querying the inadequate location of Sant'Antnin waste treatment plant with reference to groundwater.
It has been the policy of successive post-war Labour and Nationalist government administrations to locate waste facilities outside the aquifer protection zone. However, Mr Pullicino insists in keeping the present Sant'Antnin plant within the aquifer protection zone rather than relocate it to an area outside this zone. The minister's silence on this issue is disturbing and shows his hard-headedness in pursuing the Sant'Antnin project in breach of local and EU groundwater protection policy. The Malta Resources Authority (MRA), which is supposedly responsible for the protection of groundwater resources, has also joined the list of long mummified authorities that resurrect to wag their tail only at a minister's bidding.
Mr Pullicino has once again not responded to the issues I raised on contaminated compost emanating from the proposed Sant'Antnin plant. The 2005 State of the Environment report shows that soil contamination with lead (and other heavy metals) is a significant problem in Malta, which will now be aggravated by Mr Pullicino's composting plant at Sant'Antnin.
Groundwater contamination and contaminated compost will spread the evils of the proposed Sant'Antnin plant nationwide. Regrettably, the government is not educating the public on these important issues. For Mr Pullicino, the "efforts to educate the public" (February 15) amount to just another expensive exercise to indoctrinate the public to accept WasteServ's projects with no questions asked.
Meanwhile, university academics, who ought to know better, also remain reticent on the (im)moral and environmental dimensions of these issues, fearing that any critics will be axed down by the university administration. Despite its bragging for more public funds, the university administration controls dissent by remaining very generous towards its horde of academic dinosaurs bred within the intellectually incestuous PN pantheon, while continuing to be incredibly miserly towards meritorious new blood (and their new fields of knowledge) and supporting research, which are both indispensable for this country to progress forward.
Ultimately, education and political credibility are two words that Mr Pullicino knows very little about. Credibility on environmental issues is fast wearing thin as his track record is littered with contradictions. On record, Mr Pullicino had stated that the Ta' Zwejra "landfill" is a temporary facility (The Malta Independent, April 23, 2004) only to change his mind a year later, when Mr Pullicino decided to call Ta' Zwejra a permanent landfill!
Mr Pullicino now insists that Sant'Antnin plant will not be receiving municipal waste from the entire country, but two years earlier, Christopher Ciantar, then a senior executive at WasteServ, had stated that "waste generated in Gozo will be transported to Malta's temporary site and Sant'Antnin recycling plant" (The Malta Independent, April 23, 2004)!
In view of his record of erratic statements, does Mr Pullicino expect the public to believe that the proposed Sant'Antnin plant will only receive 71,000 tonnes of municipal waste when he has failed to tell us where the rest of the waste will be processed and disposed of?
Mr Mizzi is the MLP's main spokesman for infrastructural services.