Editorial

Last August, Minister for Resources and Rural Affairs George Pullicino presented a consultative document on the Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Malta. Last week, almost eight months later, the minister unveiled his water management plan. Given that Malta’s water resources are among the scarcest in the world, the leisurely pace at which he seems to be approaching the implementation of solutions to this crucial problem is a cause for concern.

It is all very well for the minister to appear in a photo opportunity with children on World Water Day urging them “not to waste a drop”. But where’s the action on the ground, the sense of urgency, on the vital steps needed to turn things around? As so often, we appear to be making all the right noises but actual implementation lags well behind.

The European Union has recently identified , together with Cyprus and the Czech Republic, as having the greatest water scarcity problems in the Union. Although the Commission acknowledges that Malta has made considerable progress over the past year in “addressing” (note, not “implementing”) its water resources problem, it highlighted the fact that a proper pricing policy – one of the “main pillars” of any new policy ­­ – still had to be implemented.

The Commission noted that until a few years ago Malta was in the situation where the extraction of groundwater from the aquifer was “free for all” (in other words, anybody who sank a borehole could help himself, or itself in the case of water bottling companies and soft-drink producers) and not be billed for the privilege. Although it was only recently that the government had obliged borehole owners to register them, and meters were being installed, the Commission said this was a situation which would have to change. Water pricing was an essential tool in controlling this precious resource.

According to the Commissioner for the Environment, groundwater extraction has to be paid for. “One of the requirements of the Water Framework Directive,” he said, “is that water pricing policy is to provide adequate incentives to users to use water resources efficiently and thereby contribute to the environmental objectives of the directive”.

This is the issue that goes to the heart of the problem. Yet, there was little mention of it at the launch of the new water management plan. While there was much hand-wringing, rightly, about the excessively high levels in some areas of nitrate pollution from fertilisers, efforts to cut consumption through educational campaigns and the “ambitious” plan to protect, enhance and improve water in Malta and Gozo, there was no clear indication of how the over-exploitation of groundwater reserves through metered, but still cost-free, boreholes, would be tackled.

This is the elephant in the room which the government appears unwilling to confront. As the newly formed Malta Water Association pointed out, while the private exploitation of groundwater remains unquantified – but estimated at 22 million cubic metres, extracted from almost 7,500 registered private boreholes – the fact is that these are depleting groundwater sources. And they are doing so at no cost to their owners, but at great environmental cost to the nation.

If the government is serious about tackling the endemic water problems it must summon the political will to introduce fair, equitable and properly regulated tariff systems to discourage free extraction of water from boreholes and to conserve the long-term viability of this strategically vital common resource.