Chadwick

It was cool in the Ta' Kandja tunnels. I had never been down there before, down in the watery bowels of the earth. This novel experience was the result of my criticism regarding sewage outflows in Marsamxett.

The WSC's CEO Mark Muscat sprang to the defence of his corporation, which is also responsible for waste water. He did not stop at making his case about the sewage outflow but also invited me to visit the corporation's facilities. That alone is evidence of positive change at WSC. A similar invitation from Enemalta Corporation many months ago stopped at being a PR exercise with no concrete follow-up.

Mr Muscat has a tremendous responsibility and I am glad that I have played my part in adding to it. Had it not been for Malta's accession to the EU, his tasks would not have been so onerous. It is unlikely that any Maltese government would have been able or would have felt inclined to invest in a waste water treatment infrastructure for many years to come. The contribution of Alternattiva Demokratika in making Malta's accession to the EU possible in the 2003 EU referendum and in the general election which confirmed it, was crucial.

For decades before, the drinking water supply had a leopard spot quality. Some areas continued to be supplied with water tainted with pollutants such as nitrates above permitted EU standards. I was glad to learn during my visit that no such areas exist today.

Nitrate pollution of the aquifer remains a major challenge for the WSC, which attains EU standards in the drinking water supply by diluting aquifer water with the superb quality water available through Reverse Osmosis plants. Bottled water is precisely the same thing less the chlorine needed to ensure safe distribution but at a thousand times the cost.

Just to add to the fun, the existing mayhem in water extraction from the aquifer by "farmers" turned swimming pool water suppliers with little or no regard for licences or the law, means that restraint by the WSC in relying on the aquifer may be more than compensated by an increase in illegal extraction. The WSC has no control. The responsibility lies with the Malta Resources Authority, a regulator that has not yet made us aware of its impact on the long-standing chaos.

Ironically, WSC has no responsibility for storm water. It is a crucial part of the puzzle. The action in this area appears to be restricted to cavalier extensions to drainage works at Marsa and Burmarrad riding roughshod over historical remains and planning laws. The object appears to be to get rid of rainwater into the sea as fast as possible. Neither the ages-old irrigation-by-flooding system at Burmarrad nor the Roman port at Marsa have been allowed to stand in the way of Minister Ninu Zammit's version of progress. The idea that preventing flooding is not the only issue appears not to have had significant weight on decision makers so far.

The amount of runoff is quantifiable. So is the annual cost of losing this resource. A simple formula could quantify our lack of wisdom in money terms year by year. Over-development and disregard for the need to safeguard aquifer recharge areas are the product of a political system that inevitably addresses the spectacular symptoms such as flooding in Qormi, Birkirkara and Msida without taking a look at the causes. The political will for change will never be found without information, education and long-term Green thinking.

There is a long cause-and-effect chain running directly from the folly of extending built-up areas into arable land to the pocket of everyone who pays a water and electricity bill and beyond that to the economic competitiveness of the country. It made no impact on decision making when Minister George Pullicino extended the development zones against all reason and public concern. It rains money in Malta and we are spending more money to ensure that it gets to the sea faster.

Meeting the WSC engineers in the Luqa control room, the Ta' Qali maintenance facility, the Sant'Antnin waste water treatment facility and at the Pembroke RO facility brought back memories of when some of these facilities were on my route as an industrial maintenance supplier. All of them have improved significantly in the past several years, spectacularly on the housekeeping side and less tangibly but crucially in the ownership of the various technologies involved.

Sant'Antnin, due to be closed once the Wied Ghammieq facility comes on line, has provided engineers there with full possession of know-how regardless of the poor handover from their contractor predecessors. The Luqa control room is set to extend its IT sway over water distribution to cover also the remote monitoring of sewage flows all over the country. The direction of the orchestra is supported by the various maintenance and system extension facilities at Ta' Qali and Kordin. In RO technology, Malta and, therefore, the WSC, is a world leader not only in capacity but more significantly in know-how. The energy audit and fine tuning of energy use in these facilities has borne fruit and sets an example that should become a nationwide standard. Hats off to Mr Muscat and all his crew.

There is still so much still to be done. While the Maltese stand high in the ratings of populations in their awareness of the need to conserve water, our peculiarly fragile situation demands more. Water, the energy costs inevitably related to it and the major stumbling blocks in the path to a truly rational use of this resource, should be a major political issue. Without public awareness, there can be no informed popular demand for improvements in the system, no pressure on politicians to take on the long-term tasks that must be addressed. With no Green access to broadcasting, the country dreams on.

Are Gozitan farmers aware of the high salinity of the sea level aquifer there? Can they be made to restrict extraction before this vital asset is lost for decades? How is nitrate pollution being addressed? Is it only excess manure in farmers' fields that is the cause? How about leaky sewage systems? What enforcement and planning backup does the WSC get from other public agencies?

Do we need a study to tell us how many millions of liri it costs the country in indirect subsidies to the building industry through lack of enforcement? When will we have a nationwide water audit making it possible to make every household and every enterprise aware of the money they can save by a cunning use and reuse of water? When will we have proper enforcement against hotels illegally using seawater as second class water or draining their RO reject water into the sewage system?

The WSC is valiantly trying to run a tight operation. It is gaining on the beast. It will never be enough. All the good faith and the best efforts of the WSC will not take it beyond its remit. Never was I more clearly made aware of the need for a holistic overview of the situation going far beyond what the WSC is entrusted with, of the need for Green political thinking.

We need to honour Chadwick, an Englishman who made the historical discovery of the mean sea level aquifer in Malta. Above all, we need to establish the continuity in water strategy reaching back to the Knights of Malta in order to establish the need for long-term forward thinking which appears to be beyond the horizons of ambulance chasing politicians. We need Greens in Parliament, if for no other reason, to dilute the short-termism pollution that has become a real threat to our survival and ability to succeed.

If anybody thinks that water should be above partisan politics along with the environment and a host of other areas with failures caused by short-term thinking, think again when your water and electricity bill arrives. It costs more today because we did not think enough yesterday and because we fail to think hard enough today. It costs more because we fail to enforce the law fully because of electoral reasons. Think again.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.

www.alternattiva.org.mt www.adgozo.com