Petra Bianchi
Quest for a greener environment
The Malta Environment and Planning Authority is constantly in the news. Whether it is buildings, waste collection, quarries, air, canopies, basements, protected areas and species, beached whales or dolphins, the restoration of old buildings, noise or odour nuisances, parking, dumping, diving, excavating, demolishing, filming, landscaping, camping or rambling, many people immediately first turn their gaze towards Mepa.
While Mepa’s duties are indeed wide-ranging, it is frequently assumed to be responsible when it is not. However, this is not the moment to explore that particular concern.
The Environment Protection Directorate is one of Mepa’s four directorates and tends to feature prominently in media reports and articles. However, its role and main functions within the organisation are perhaps not sufficiently known to the public.
The EPD performs a multitude of duties. We regulate waste collection in line with EU legislation, issue environmental permits to industry, monitor air quality, regulate activities taking place in protected areas, collect and report environmental data to the EU, evaluate environmental impact assessments linked to proposals for development and designate protected species and habitats in terrestrial and marine areas, among a myriad of other tasks.
The Mepa reform is ongoing and the EPD is part of this process. Among many other initiatives, industrial permitting is being strengthened and a new set of regulations will be open for public consultation shortly. A draft plan for the collection of electronic and electrical equipment waste will also be made available for consultation in September.
The EIA regulations are being reviewed. Various measures put forward in the Air Quality Plan last year are being implemented. A national strategy to protect and conserve biodiversity will be published for consultation later this year. Funds have been obtained from the EU to draw up management plans for all the Natura 2000 sites in Malta and Gozo.
Mepa is also striving to make the environmental aspect of the planning process ever more central and transparent. For example, we have recently begun uploading the EPD reports on EIAs onto the website to allow applicants, environmental NGOs and the public to view these documents. The EPD reports were previously only summarised in the reports prepared by planning case officers towards the end of the application process.
This is a significant step towards making environmental assessment more central to the planning process, as can be clearly seen in the reactions to the EPD report on the Ħondoq ir-Rummien application, with various statements being published about it in the media since its publication.
The EPD is intent on doing a good job in protecting the environment. There is a colossal amount of work to be done. However, a reform of the magnitude that is being targeted needs a period of time to take shape.
Mepa also operates within a legal framework and is, at times, constrained to follow certain legally-binding decisions taken in previous years, whether it likes them or not. This should not detract from all the good work that is being done for the benefit of the environment.
One of the steps of the ongoing reform is that outline permits were removed from the planning process earlier this year. Consequently, it will soon no longer be possible for a set of board members to constrain any subsequent board members, together with the environment and planning directorates, into reviewing a proposal within the restricting framework of an outline permit.
However, until all existing outline permits and applications have been concluded one way or another, both the directorates and the Mepa board members may continue to be challenged by difficult and, at times, controversial decisions related to outline permits. Yet, this should not be allowed to overshadow or discourage the positive steps that are now being taken to move ahead.
In many ways, some of them obvious and others perhaps less visible but equally significant, Mepa has embarked on a new direction. I have no doubt that this will become increasingly clear as we move ahead over the coming year.
The reform will undoubtedly continue to call out for improvements, together with fine-tuning as new measures are introduced, but, overall, the direction has been firmly set to put the protection of the environment high on Mepa’s agenda.
Dr Bianchi is environment protection director at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.
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Mr Joe Mallia
Aug 17th 2011, 21:11
MEPA has lost credibility as regards the environment. What is expected of MEPA is action more than words. The decisions taken by MEPA reflect the true side of this authority. It is hard to gain credibility as action speaks louder than words.
Chris J Vassallo
Aug 17th 2011, 20:46
Oh come on, just get real and stop taking us for fools!
Frankly this article gives the impression that the MEPA reform is some complex scientific experiment that can potentially change the world.
MEPA is a mismanaged body corporate that is entreated by the state to issue permits according to a set of a clear legal structure and a set of unequivocal policies. What’s so complex with keeping to policies? Is it rocket science to have some accountability when these policies are blatantly breached? What exactly is so unbelievably complicated about subcontracting studies when MEPA itself has the technical skills to produce them in-house? Why is it so complicated to downsize MEPA to stop losing millions every year?
Why is it so difficult for board members to raise their concerns to oppose developments when they breach MEPA’s own policies? Is it so difficult to find people with some spine on the MEPA board with the character to stand-up for what is right? Everything about MEPA is all empty talk and no substance!
Ms Rose Cilia
Aug 18th 2011, 15:15
I agree with you Mr.Vassallo.
Mr Edward Mallia
Aug 17th 2011, 17:19
Someone did say Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdomof heaven. Apologising obliquely -- if that is what this writing really is -- while being quite unable to provide any redress is childish behaviour, not amenable to being covered by 'fine words'. After all Mepa has never had any lack of fine words, even before Dr. Bianchi was made Environment Director.
Joe Attard
Aug 17th 2011, 16:53
She is a different person,now. To put you in the picture,this is what Dr.Bianchi wrote( just a few months ago ) on the eve of her appointment, while still Executive President of DLH-"One of Din L-Art Helwa`s principle concerns is the state of the countryside.The stretches of open countryside that are left in Malta and Gozo are very limited.We feel strongly that a line must be drawn and that no further development must be allowed in areas that lie outside the development zones"
To me and to many others,this is not veering gently to one side,it`s a complete u-turn.
Mr Edward Mallia
Aug 17th 2011, 15:15
Joseph Farrugia has not got it quite right. If by '[Dr. Bianchi's] section' he means the Environment Protection Division, then expressing what is public concern in private, and keeping silent in the public sessions, is hardly very praiseworthy. If Dr. Bianchi's 'section' is her former pasture of DLH, then that's ok, as DLH did express itself quite strongly. But there is more: the NGO NON-representative on the board Philip Manduca ( of DLH as well) voted against the project, though that could have been a Gonzi ' divorce' type of vote, made in the knowledge that it was going to be ineffectual. Whatever the combination of motives, this is a tidy situation for Mepa.
As for to-day's writing being "an apology", that's too simple by half. There is not even a hint of an answer to the NGO contention that as the outline permit had expired, the full permit was not legal. Surely the massed legal ranks of Mepa should be up to accepting or refuting that contention. There has only been a shattering silence till now.
Mr Adrian Borg Cardona
Aug 17th 2011, 13:01
I sincerely believe that this article was written as a form of apology for Dr. Bianchi's behaviour in last week's discussion at MePA about the relocation of the Mgarr petrol station. The unfortunate thing is that while she writes some fine words, it is her actions that speak louder. Once we will see her openly oppose atrocities like last week's, then we can truly say that she is defending Malta's green environment - what is left of it, that is.
Sammy Vella
Aug 17th 2011, 11:03
Dr Petra Bianchi has addressed a whole set of issues that have been crying out to the heavens for redress and reformulation. In her meticulously - I almost wrote "extremely"- balanced assessment of the current situation at MEPA, she has touched a whole series or raw nerves that have, in recent years, persuaded many environmentalists to conclude that the EPD did not exist but was merely being used to lend the Planning Directorate a convenient alibi while it dished out permits for speculators to continue to devastate our countryside and coastlines.
Dr Bianchi's statements in this article constitute a welcome fresh breeze into a controversial discussion about MEPA's true mission. They resurrect the debate as to whether the EPD can effectually carry out its mission while it remains hobbled to the Planning Directorate's development-oriented agenda. Dr Bianchi’s promise to launch a new offensive in favour of environmental conservation and regeneration encourages environmental organisations to take new heart, and her hints at decoupling the EPD from the Planning Directorate lends refreshing credibility to her insistence that her Quest for a greener environment will not take the shape of a “re-quest” but of a determined directive. We know that the path will be neither straight nor comfortable, but we pledge our support to her endeavours and augur her initiatives the fullest success.
Joe Attard
Aug 17th 2011, 09:48
Dr.Bianchi,
It may be true that at Mepa there is a workload that needs to be seen to and a reform on the way.But what has this got to do with the way you behaved during both public hearings of the Mgarr scrapyard saga?Is it necessary to don a different hat now that you are on the other side of the fence? Was this the Prime Minister`s intention in the first place when he appointed you EPD?Not a single word you said! Not even when asked to comment.I honestly thought you were just an observer without a vote.Can you imagine what a rift you have created with all NGO`s and people who have the environment truly at heart?
Joseph Camilleri
Aug 17th 2011, 13:24
@ Joe Attard
with all due respect, Dr Bianchi HAS to don a different hat - she is no longer head of an NGO but head of an important government sector. But she is not a different person. Her section expressed its concerns on the Mgrarr petrol station clearly. The Board, in its evaluation, put the removal of the unseen underground contamination caused by the derelict Mgarr station and weighed it against a new one. The new pne took up new land and no one was happy with that but compromises are part of life and of decisions.
The rifts have not been caused by Dr. Bianchi but by people who are more concerned to promote their images as paladins of the environment - armchair critics who do little by way of decision making.