Fixing what is broken

So, the black dust saga has been going on for at least nine years. Nine long years have gone by since a member of Cabinet - a Cabinet of ministers chosen by the leader of the political party still in power today - presented a report to Parliament, attributing the flying black dust to the Marsa power station.

Mepa - we read and say "Mepa" so often that we tend to forget that this four-letter abbreviation stands for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority - now tells us that the report submitted by that member of Cabinet nine years ago was inconclusive. The methodology employed in 2000, Mepa's environment protection director says now, was inadequate.

In the course of a press conference, this gentleman apparently quipped that the authors of the 2000 report proceeded in a manner similar to that of a detective who found a fingerprint on the scene of the crime but stopped short of trying to match it with the suspect's own fingerprint. I am not sure if this remark was intended to appeal to citizens with a taste for whodunit literature.

I am sure, however, that it does nothing to explain why, if the methodology of the thus roundly-rubbished 2000 report was so defective, it was submitted to Parliament in the first place and why the authorities concerned did not follow it up immediately with a methodologically-sounder study. What Mepa's environment protection director told the press conference - at least as reported in the press - is somewhat confusing.

Although, thanks to the researchers' apparently poor detective skills (or the study's limited scope and terms of reference), the 2000 report failed to prove that the Marsa power station was to blame, Enemalta subsequently took "mitigating" measures. Presumably as a result of these measures, complaints decreased or ceased until a couple of years ago.

If there was no causal link between the dust and the Marsa station, then why would complaints have decreased after the adoption of mitigating measures? It is, of course, logically possible that mitigating measures were also quietly undertaken by the real culprit/s at the same time as Enemalta.

In this case, rather than blame Enemalta, we ought to praise it for undertaking mitigating measures, although it was completely innocent in the first place. Indeed, the nation would owe it a collective apology for the unfounded assumption that it was to blame in the first place. But, then, why speak of mitigating measures? To mitigate means "to moderate"' a quality or condition, "to make it milder".

If Enemalta was completely innocent in the first place, then why refer to the measures it undertook as "mitigating" and not "preventive"? Or is it unrealistic to think in absolute terms in such cases? Such an explanation would be completely possible but, then, why not speak plainly?

We are told that, in 2007, following complaints, fresh studies were undertaken to correct the defect of the 2000 study. The 2007 study, however, was also methodologically defective because the samples analysed were collected by residents. Following a further increase in complaints, Mepa set out on the arduous task of collecting 10 grams of black dust to send to a laboratory abroad, as, presumably, we are either unable to analyse it locally or we do not trust each other sufficiently. In any case, not all of the 10 grams have been collected yet.

Meanwhile, Enemalta has declared its innocence and suggested as possible sources the Marsa incinerator, traffic, ships, bakeries and industrial boilers. Mepa excludes traffic but includes scrap yards as possible culprits. Wasteserv (the national waste management operator) contradicts Enemalta and rules out the abattoir incinerator. It "absolutely" denies any correlation between the amount of dust emitted from the incinerator (intoning the tired mantra that this is well within levels allowed by the EU) and the incidence of black dust.

In the meantime, it is not only the black dust that continues to fly but time too. The impact on public health is an issue that has not been sufficiently looked at. Nine years have been wasted and all that this government's spokesman can tell Parliament is that the search for the source of the black ash is still at a premature stage. If you enjoyed the reported reference to botched detective work in the course of Mepa's above-mentioned press conference, you will appreciate re-reading the end of Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939), where Philip Marlowe reflects on the grim and sordid tragicomedy he has just experienced.

Speaking of comedy, when you finally stop laughing at the farce the University rector has allowed himself to be involved in, perhaps you should visit the University Library.

No, not to peruse a copy of Li tkisser sewwi (Fix what you break) - although I would expect the Melitensia collection to acquire a copy, not only for future scholars of literature but mainly for anthropologists and sociologists - but to enquire whether any dissertations were ever written at the University of Malta on the infamous black dust.

Can the damage caused by the black dust, whatever its source, to the credibility of the state ever be fixed?

Dr Vella blogs at watersbroken.wordpress.com.