Ensuring that industrial installations operate in conformity with acceptable standards meant to safeguard the environment and human health is rapidly evolving into a priority area at both the local and EU levels.
Development planning agencies, and even governments themselves, are often faced with contentious situations whereby the public, or a segment of it, may express considerable resentment and preoccupation with regards to what may be perceived as potentially harmful operations at industrial sites.
EU Directive 96/61/EC concerning integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC Directive), is meant to provide an adequate legal framework for the regulation of industrial site operations, listed in Annex I of the Directive, in terms of reducing atmospheric, water and land emissions from such sites by practicable means.
Over 30 types of installations are included in Annex I, subdivided into six general categories including the energy, chemical, and mineral industries, metal production and processing installations, waste management facilities and others. The IPPC Directive has been transposed into Maltese legislation in terms of Legal Notice 234/2002 as amended.
The purpose and scope of the IPPC Directive, described in Article 1, needs to be configured within the context of another landmark EU environmental legal instrument - Directive 85/337/EC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (the EIA Directive).
Whereas the EIA Directive sets the legal parameters for evaluating environmental impacts from development projects at the earliest stage possible, that is when a formal development proposal is submitted to the competent authorities, the IPPC Directive puts further onus on installation operators in ensuring that adequate pollution prevention and control measures are taken in the management of plants once these come into existence.
To some reasonable extent, therefore, the IPPC Directive caters for environmental impact stock-taking in the aftermath of development implementation. The "integrated" approach advocated by the Directive aims at creating a co-ordinated effort meant to keep in check all sorts of plant emissions to the atmospheric, water and land environments.
As stated in the chapeau such an approach constitutes "an important part of the move towards a more sustainable balance between human activity and socio-economic development, on the one hand, and the resources and regenerative capacity of nature, on the other".
The general principles to which the installation operator should abide under EU law are listed in Article 3 and stipulate, inter alia, that the operator must ensure that no "significant" pollution is caused without, however, going into any specific details about the exact meaning of the term "significant". However, it is understood that any emissions resulting from installation operations should only impact within the limits imposed by the respective air and water pollutant emission limit values as prescribed, for example, by the various daughter directives of the Community air quality and water frameworks (Directives 96/62/EC and 2000/60/EC respectively).
A comprehensive list of EU directives specifically including well-defined "minimum" emission limit values relevant for the purposes of implementing the Directive is provided in Annex II. An "indicative list" of air and water pollutants potentially resulting from plant operations, the regulation of which falls within the remit of Directive 96/61/EC is provided in Annex III.
A notable feature in the IPPC legal regime is the requirement for plant operators to apply for permission (referred to as an IPPC permit) to run any particular installation under the Directive. The competent authority (in Malta's case, MEPA) may only issue such a permit provided the operator submits an application comprising a full description of the installation characteristics as stipulated under Article 6. This includes "measures planned to monitor emissions into the environment".
Details about permit conditions are elaborated in Article 9 which, under sub-article (1), stipulates that the granting of such permits is meant "to achieve a high level of protection for the environment as a whole by means of protection of the air, water and land."
The successful implementation of the IPPC Directive and the entire process it triggers is largely determined by the plant operators' ability to strike the right compromise between regulating plant emissions to within acceptable limits and the inevitable cost factor entailed when investing in suitable abatement technology.
In this respect, the Directive refers to "best available techniques", defined as per Article 2 (11), and which clearly stipulates that such techniques should be implemented "under economically and technically viable conditions, taking into consideration the costs and advantages... as long as they are reasonably accessible to the operator".
Arguably, the definition in Article 2 (11) may be interpreted as a recognition of the fact that, irrespective of all environmental protection needs, the adoption of efficient and suitably effective pollution abatement technology is only possible within economic and technical constraints which should not be underestimated. Through its Annex IV the Directive provides a list of "considerations" which the operator is expected to take into account when determining the best available techniques for pollution prevention and control.
The most significant element in Article 15, dealing with information access and public participation in the permit procedure, is arguably sub-article (2). The latter stipulates that the results from installation emissions monitoring (as required under the permit provisions in Article 9) "must be made available to the public." A general outline of the public participation procedure is given in Annex V of the Directive.
However, the IPPC Directive goes even further. Through its Article 15a, it not only empowers the public to seek court redress if it is believed that the public participation procedure leading to the granting of an IPPC permit has been infringed, but Article 17 also safeguards the interests of neighbouring EU member states by protecting them from any potential trans-boundary impacts resulting from installation operations. This approach is in keeping with the "no-harm principle" long enshrined as customary international law. After all, environmental pollution knows no frontiers.
It is understood that both the Marsa and Delimara power stations, run by Enemalta, should require an IPPC permit. Most probably, the same applies to all waste management facilities in Malta, including the landfill sites, the recycling plant in Marsascala, and also St Luke's Hospital clinical waste incinerator and the recently installed incineration facility at Marsa.
Malta's shipyards may also require such a permit, perhaps under Category 2 of Annex 1 in the Directive. In all these cases the installation operator is the Government. Given the relatively limited nature of Malta's industry, which conspicuously lacks any major large-scale chemical production or processing facility, it is likely that the number of private IPPC permit holders should be rather small.
An interesting case is whether Malta's education sector itself should, somehow, require an IPPC permit in the context of the procurement, use and disposal of chemicals by school and higher education laboratory facilities. However, this would probably entail a far-reaching interpretation of the term "installation" as applied in the context of the Directive. The IPPC process is managed by a committee within MEPA.
Alan Pulis, B.Ed. (Hons), Dip. Env. Sc., M.Sc. (Lond.), teaches Environmental Science and Chemistry at the Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School in Naxxar.