Fort Cambridge area: No EIA

Much has been said about whether the Fort Cambridge area (FCA) should have been subject to an environmental impact assessment (EIA) or not.

On the one hand, we have the environmental organisations and the long-suffering residents of the Qui-Si-Sana/Tignè peninsula arguing in favour of one. On the other hand, we have both the government and Mepa doing their utmost, quoting chapter and verse, to convince all and sundry that an EIA was not needed. This matter is now before the EU Environment Commissioner.

Mepa has stated that they determine only on a case-by-case basis whether significant environmental effects are probable. If there are none no EIA is required. This case-by-case basis is a most significant flaw in Mepa's remit.

It does not consider the holistic effects on the general area, taking into consideration other developments close by. In this case these are the two other mega projects, Town Square and Tignè Point, already being built on the narrow confines of the same Qui-Si-Sana/Tignè peninsula which is a densely-populated residential area and always has been.

One of the worst effects that will result from this mega project will be that of an unacceptable increase in traffic in the narrow surrounding streets of the project itself and in the Qui-Si-Sana/Tignè peninsula in general. Mepa has constantly skirted this important impact of the project.

It maintains that the baseline for determining any impact is the former hotel (Crowne Plaza) and goes on to compare the equivalent of 190 bedrooms of the hotel, "residential units", with the 386 apartments of the new project, implying that there will be an increase of only 196 residential units which, however, will occupy the same footprint.

What Mepa conveniently fails to consider is that not all the occupants of the 190 bedrooms in the hotel would hire a car. An average of only some 80 cars would have been hired by the residents at any one time and that only in the peak season.

On the other hand, the occupants of the 386 apartments of the new project, well-to-do people, are likely to own some 1,000 cars between them, a daily increase of some 920 cars coming in and out of the project's extremely-confined area which is surrounded by narrow streets and which are purely residential.

If one considers this enormous traffic problem holistically for the whole peninsula, taking into consideration the projected pedestrianisation of Bisazza Street, turning both Qui-Si-Sana and Tignè seafronts into main arteries, and the completion of the two other mega projects of the peninsula, namely Tignè Point and Town Square, not to mention the projected Qui-Si-Sana underground car park with a possible entertainment complex, then the mind boggles at what is in store for the existing residents of the area (and for the new, unsuspecting Fort Cambridge ones too!): Traffic jams, grid locks, tailbacks and rat runs. These will cause an unacceptable quantity of exhaust and noise pollution creating a severe health hazard for all.

All this makes a mockery of Mepa's assertion that any incremental impacts (those created by 386 residential units on the existing footprint) would not be significant, particularly as the area in question is primarily a residential one. It is because the area is residential that the impact of increased exhaust and noise pollution will be so great.

Mepa also incredibly maintains that the environmental effects resulting from the demolition and construction phases would not be significant(!).

A few thousand particles of dust being inhaled every minute by residents and passers-by are not significant; after all they could only cause irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs, which can lead to breathing and respiratory problems!

Mepa should send one of its staff to take a walk around the whole area to see (and breathe) all the dust being churned out by demolition and excavation. Dust in the air, dust on the roads, dust on the residents' windows and cars, dust inside their homes and, worst of all, dust in their lungs. And all this despite a poor attempt to screen off the area and cover trucks carrying excavated rubble.

The subsequent use of barges to remove excavated rubble has not stopped some trucks also doing this and so the situation has improved only marginally.

The fact that this mega project of building 386 residential units is causing residents to suffer so much, both now and later when it is completed, does not seem to bother Mepa because the area is (already) primarily residential!

Mepa cites the EIA carried out on the (first) mega project (in the narrow confines of the Qui-Si-Sana/Tignè peninsula), the adjacent Tignè Point development, as the reason for not carrying out an EIA on Fort Cambridge. What it conveniently fails to state is that Tignè Point's EIA was carried out without any knowledge of the two mega projects that were to follow, Town Square and now Fort Cambridge, rendering this reason totally invalid.

Finally, going back to the subject of exhaust and noise pollution, one should refer to the developer's own traffic impact statement (TIS).

Paragraph 86, dealing with the environmental impact, admits of a threefold increase in traffic on the streets closest to the project and, therefore, "the environmental impact on the noise climate is likely to be significant" Did Mepa take note of this?

The same paragraph admits that: "In the absence of street/location specific emissions, it is not possible to determine the effects of the additional traffic on air quality". This is a major flaw in the TIS and Mepa should have made the developer gauge specific emissions. Why did it not do so? Does not the health of the residents in the area concern it?

But the piece de resistance of this extraordinary paragraph 86 is when it asserts that, through the implementation of the ADT Sliema transport plan, rat running and through traffic will reduce and "is likely to improve air quality in the residential areas, and the emissions resulting from the vehicles associated with the scheme are not likely to make the situation any worse than it is at the present"(!).

The three mega projects will increase traffic no end, including rat runs, irrespective of whatever plan the ADT finally decides on, and therefore enormously increase emissions. The Fort Cambridge Area project alone will generate an extra 920 cars exiting and entering the area daily. How can one conclude that the situation will not be any worse?

On the grounds of paragraph 86 alone, Mepa should have required the developer to take extensive tests of exhaust emissions or, better still, ordered an EIA.

The fact that it did not do so causes one to strongly suspect, as did the public and the residents of the Qui-Si-Sana/ Tignè peninsula in particular, that the processing of the application was a rushed job, the result of a pre-decision by the authorities to sanction the project, enabling the government to pocket over Lm23 million and pass on half of it to its struggling airline company, Air Malta, in order to help keep it afloat, or rather, airborne.

Was this, perhaps, the real reason why no EIA was deemed necessary? Or was there some other reason?