It has been reported that Mepa has formally informed the St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation that it has agreed to prepare the terms of reference for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to be carried out on the foundation's proposals to extend its museum at St John's Co-Cathedral.
What may seem strange is the fact that the foundation actually "welcomed the news". This is strange because it will be the same foundation (the developer) that will be forking out tens if not hundreds of thousands of euros on these studies.
So why should the foundation "welcome" news that will set it back a few hundred thousand euros and its planned project by at least 18 months?
Especially when a truly impartial EIA could reveal that the foundation's project cannot be given a permit on heritage, environmental and scheduling grounds.
The reason for the foundation's reaction is really very simple to understand. Experience has shown us that the "independent and thorough EIA" will be neither independent nor thorough.
An EIA is meant to examine all aspects of a project in order to recommend the best possible options for all, including the residents, the environment, heritage etc, while suggesting mitigation measures to diminish any negative impacts which cannot be eliminated altogether. However, instead of being the positive tool they are intended to be, EIAs in Malta have been used as part of the developers' armoury in order to win approval for projects that would not otherwise be allowed, which again explains the foundation's enthusiasm for the EIA.
Maltese EIAs are invariably biased in favour of the development and again this is easy to understand - EIA consultants are paid by the developer and, moreover, there exists no deterrent for unprincipled consultants to be impartial in their assessment.
Mepa has consistently failed to address the latter problem, even though the EIA process was introduced in Malta more than 10 years ago. Why? Possibly because the unregulated sector suits certain parties?
In 10 years, Mepa has failed to draw up a register of EIA consultants, the first step in ensuring that consultants working on EIAs are suitably qualified and can be held accountable for their work.
In the (very few) instances where EIA studies were deemed to be so biased by Mepa that they had to be rejected, no action was taken against the consultants. The same consultants still churn out one EIA after another for private and public developers alike, sometimes without even being qualified in the fields they are assessing.
I have seen very few "thorough" EIAs. A thorough EIA is one that addresses the real issues at stake and need not necessarily be voluminous. Over the years, we have been presented with several of these voluminous glossy EIAs that seem to be designed in such a way so as to overwhelm the reader and distract from the main issues that would help the Mepa board determine whether a development is acceptable or not.
How can one explain the fact that while the study on the Ricasoli derelict industrial estate runs to over 700 pages, there is no mention of the huge impact that SmartCity will have on Enemalta's carbon emissions and Enemalta's capacity to provide the necessary power to the same SmartCity? The Fort Cambridge EIA omitted the key issues of traffic management and social impact. Can these be considered a meaningful and thorough assessment?
Moreover, how can we expect the EIA to come up with realistic alternatives for the proposed development, when it is so clearly evident that the developers are dead set against any alternatives other than the site they have set their sights on? Will the EIA give as much coverage and importance to the alternatives that are being put forward by citizens and NGOs as to the developers' proposals?
Can we expect the developers to enthusiastically spend thousands of euros in studying an alternative that will ultimately show that they were wrong in assuming that no viable alternatives exist in the first place?
Previous experience has shown that assessment of "alternative sites" and "alternative methods" is a farce. In all my years of studying EIAs, I cannot recall a single one that has resulted in an alternative site (and by this I do not refer to a shift of a few metres here and there) or an alternative method being taken on board by the development.
I have no reason to believe that the EIA for the St John's Co-Cathedral museum will be any different and the foundation may be fully conscious of this.
It is for this reason that I appeal to the new chairman of Mepa to address the very serious shortcomings in the EIA regulations with urgency.
Ing. Cremona is a qualified hydrologist.