Extracting underground water to irrigate fields, fill up swimming pools or sell it is illegal, yet it is becoming easier and cheaper to dig a borehole in your back garden.
A simple quotation from local shops where submersible borehole pumps may be bought off the shelf shows that the cost of setting up an unbilled, illegal water source away from the public eye runs into a mere Lm600, excluding drilling costs.
A separate inquiry on drilling costs showed that between Lm1 and Lm1.25 is charged for every foot that needs to be drilled to reach the aquifer. The cost would therefore vary depending on the height of the ground above sea level. But for a hole of, say, between 150 feet and 200 feet, the expense would not be more than Lm250. The running costs entailed in maintaining the pump and paying for electricity to pump up the water are definitely not comparable to buying water from the Water Services Corporation.
Experts have often acknowledged that illegal extraction of water is rampant in Malta and Gozo and warn that lax enforcement of laws that protect groundwater will lead to a crisis.
Writing in The Times last month, hydrologist Marco Cremona said that one-third of Malta's economic activity depends on unregulated water supplies (boreholes and transportation by unauthorised water bowsers).
"Our aquifers are being depleted at a deplorable rate and will be rendered useless within our lifetime," Mr Cremona said, warning of a national crisis unless the matter is treated seriously.
Besides the acknowledged extraction of water by farmers and growers, illegal extraction is also suspected to occur in connection with commercial activities.
According to Mr Cremona, there are a number of hotels that rely on bowser water - which is mostly extracted and subsequently sold - especially those which are not close to the sea and therefore do not have their own reverse osmosis plants.
"With the mains water tariff for hotels being much more costly than that for households, it makes economic sense to purchase this water, even though it is of a lower quality. When bought in bulk, bowser water costs about 50c per cubic metre, around Lm1.20c less than water from the national distribution system, which includes the surcharge," he said.
With current costs, if a hotel consumes 100 cubic metres per day, the savings will amount to more than Lm43,000 a year. Ironically, the surcharge has had the effect of increasing the demand for bowser water, the hydrologist noted.
"Illegal extraction places added pressure on the aquifer because water is not being replaced fast enough. We have had a record drought in January and this is likely to make the situation worse," Mr Cremona said.
According to the Meteorological Office at Malta International Airport, last month was the second driest January in 84 years with only five rain days and a mere total of 8.6mm recorded, just a fraction of the 95.5mm January average.
The prospects of rainfall patterns are not good either. According to the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Mediterranean will experience a drop in average rainfall. In Malta, it is estimated there will be at least 20 per cent reduction in rainfall leading to water shortage in the long run. Water Services Corporation chairman Michael Falzon said groundwater has definitely deteriorated in quality due to illegal extraction and its salinity has increased so much that we have to treat most of it in the same way as seawater.
While the WSC has been reducing the amount of water it extracts since 1993, the same cannot be said for private extraction. The WSC annual report of 2000 states that after the publication of a legal notice in 1997, when the corporation had invited private extractors to register their boreholes, the number of applications continued increasing. It was not possible to obtain an estimate of the number of illegal boreholes because the Malta Resources Authority, which took over water regulation in 2001, has not replied to questions by The Times (see below).
After the 1997 legal notice, which had given just a week's chance for people to register their boreholes, the WSC - till then still acting as a kind of regulator - had decided to keep on accepting applications for a period of time.
"The reasoning was that the WSC could gather more data and at least know how many illegal boreholes there were," Mr Falzon said.
In any case, the legal notice was not sanctioning the illegality, as it specified clearly that "the registration of ground water source does not in any way give any right to the user to draw water from such source, or to dispose of any material, whether liquid or solid, in such source, or to keep open such source". After all, underground water is protected by the Constitution of Malta.
While the Church in Malta is praying for rain, given the current drought, the Resources and Infrastructure Ministry is keeping Malta's first National Water Policy under wraps.
A ministry spokesman said when contacted that the final draft of the policy was not yet finalised. He was not in a position to say when the document would be published.
A consultation workshop on the water policy was held by the Malta Resources Authority in April 2004, with presentations on various aspects of the policy being made. Since then, it seems the Water Policy For The Future has hit a brick wall.
The MRA, which falls within the ministry and is responsible for regulating water, failed to answer questions sent by The Times on December 4, 2006. A number of e-mails were sent since then but no reply was received. The e-mails were even followed up by phone calls. This is what the MRA was asked:
How many boreholes for the extraction of water are actually registered besides those used by the Water Services Corporation?
What share of the registered boreholes is on agricultural land, private gardens, hotels, commercial beverage producers (soft-drinks, wine-makers) car wash, concrete-makers etc?
It has often been said that information in the books does not reflect reality because the number of boreholes is much higher than that quoted. Do you agree?
What is the actual number of registered boreholes and the estimated number of illegal boreholes?
Besides the water extracted by the WSC, are there other legal water sources?
The yellow pages contain two full pages advertising water transport by bowsers. How many of them have a licence to extract and sell water?
Does the MRA actually issue licenses for extracting and selling water?
If any water sellers are licensed, are they obliged to carry out quality tests by the regulator?
Is the sale of borehole pumps and drilling apparatus regulated? If not, should it be, and why is it not when it is so easy to buy a pump over the counter for a few hundreds of liri?
Has there been any form of clampdown on the illegal extraction and selling by bowsers since the MRA took over water regulation?
Has the MRA received requests from owners of illegal boreholes to regularise their position? Are any regularisation periods planned, similar to the one covered by Legal Notice 120 of 1997?
There has been sporadic arraignment of people caught extracting water illegally. Does the small number of arraignments imply that the activity is not rampant?
In your view, do the penalties contemplated by law serve as a deterrent?
Finally, is the present situation sustainable?