Environmental NGOs want real results (1)

Anyone who has followed the environmental scene for some years could be forgiven for taking the first part of Alan Deidun's column (The Sunday Times, July 11) as being tongue in cheek.

He accuses environmental NGOs of failing to congratulate Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino for taking some steps towards stemming the illegal extraction of water, and of not condemning the GRTU for its defence of the bowser water suppliers. He was not being ironic at all; he actually meant it.

Dr Deidun fires this criticism just after having said that the "NGOs have long clamoured for the government to smell the coffee and to take concrete steps" on the water-extraction problem.

"Finally, the government did," and so, because 'finally' something has been done, Dr Deidun expected us to "scramble over each other to support such a commendable development".

While we find no difficulty at all in condemning both the abuse of the bowser operators, which is very much against the nation's interests, and their defence by the GRTU, we also find Dr Deidun's attitude not worthy of the man.

In an interesting long online comment on the article, Marco Cremona relayed information which puts Dr Deidun's clamour for praise in a new light. He tells us that so far around 30 borehole meters have been installed and that this now leaves only some 8,500 boreholes to be regularised.

It stands to reason that the NGOs prefer to wait for real results before applauding something which should have been done many years ago, rather than approving a situation which sees us still lagging frightfully behind.

It is indeed a pity that in this circumstance Dr Deidun has chosen to attack his environmental allies and to take a partisan political position. While we have not forgotten his significant contributions to the environmental field we hope Dr Deidun has not now decided that he has first to have political clout before he can hope to have an environmental clout.

We offer him all our help and participation in any environmental initiative he may choose to embark upon as long as it is not tainted by partisan politics.

At the same time we wish to correct Mr Cremona's statement that "groundwater was never a top-priority issue for the NGOs". Most Maltese environmental NGOs consider safeguarding our water supply to be one of the most urgent problems we are facing; so much so they have been involved in the field for at least 15 years and have issued press releases to this effect.

However, as Mr Cremona knows, this is a very technical field. Lacking depth in technical resources, the NGOs would be foolhardy to take the lead in an issue where they are out of their depth; however, if Mr Cremona or any other hydrologist were prepared to volunteer some of their time, we would be very happy to give this matter the importance it deserves.