Please let those sleeping rocks lie

Godfrey R. Pace (Walking On Stones At Golden Bay, June 25) is rightly preoccupied. But like the majority of visitors to Golden Bay and the rest of Malta he is not aware of where the real problem lies. His solution will only aggravate the existing problem.

In the late 1970s, hundreds of tons of golden sand were carted away to form a base for football pitches being laid with turf. At the stroke of a pen the then Minister of Public Works gave the go-ahead and we now have green turf at the National Stadium and a couple of others at the expense of a natural gem which is Golden Bay.

The result of that ecological attack is now bearing fruit. The sand dunes lying at the back were annihilated in a matter of weeks thus removing the "backbone" of any natural beach and turning it into a crippled one. Nature started a healing process resulting in a receding shoreline. What Mr Pace saw is the exposed foundations. The rocks and stones form an "anchorage" in any natural sandy beach. To try and remove them will make the shoreline recede even further. A perfect example is the small beach at Selmun Bay (Mġiebaħ) when some souls with good intentions started removing all the stones some years ago to make it more "friendly" for patrons from a nearby hotel. Go and have a look at it now!

The problem at Golden Bay is being further aggravated by the fact that over the past month the seaweed cleaners have been carting away the exposed stones together with the seaweed with erroneous good intentions. The photo here shows the damage being done by someone working from a government office. The other day this bright chap sent workmen to clear the shoreline from stones and rocks. The workmen did this against their will knowing that all they would be doing was disturbing the underlying foundations of the sand by unearthing bigger rocks that have been lying there for a thousand years. They argued, however, that orders were orders. Every visitor that comes to Golden Bay will eventually take a spoonful of sand back to the car or home with him. Multiply that by an average of 500 visitors and that's an awful lot of spoonfuls daily. Add the fact that a truckload of seaweed consists of 20 per cent sand and the worst scenario emerges.

I have been associated with Golden Bay for 50 odd years and I know well the people that have been working there for a number of years. Together we all agree that the shoreline has receded by at least 15 metres. The only way to help a crippled man is to give him crutches and although he'll never walk like before he will walk better. Please let sleeping rocks lie. The solution seems to be replacing what was taken, a big undertaking by any means but at least it is providing the "crutches" to an ailing natural gem!

By the way, I am Maltese having an English grandfather and I've lived most of my life in the north of the island.