Conflicting signals on water
Earlier this month the chief executive of the Water Services Corporation ‘reassured’ us all that Malta can never run out of water, with the worst case scenario being a decline in the quality.
What I found even more worrying was that the Resources Minister was reported to have reaffirmed the CEO’s statement.
Ironically such a statement was made during the launch of the Water Policy for the Maltese Islands, which up to a week later was not even available online – as most environmental experts and hydrologists complained in their blogs. So did the rest of us.
The minister not only conceded that the EU targets for the implementation of a water catchment plan for groundwater will not all be met by 2015, but he also attributed this to the failure to ensure that all the necessary structures will be in place on time.
The minister also admitted that the quality of our own water has gone down, when figures published in 2000 already drew a rather grim picture of the overall situation.
What I found somewhat strange was that the day after that the minister made such a statement, he told a news conference to mark World Environment Day that water quality over the years had improved.
I find it equally baffling when I contrast the WSC CEO’s reassurances on water supply with the fact that the EU Commission has long singled us out, together with Cyprus and the Czech Republic, as one of the member states with the worst water scarcity problem.
On the other hand, when the minister recently published the Climate Adaptation Report, which has been in preparation since the summer of 2009, he understandably devoted large chunks of the report to the need to address the urgent water problem.
Which version are we to rely on? The over-cozy reassurances? The business-as-usual approach? Or the alarmist scenario?
There is one certainty that emerges from the whole situation: that water was and remains a strategic resource for Malta and that although the Labour Party introduced the revolutionary concept of reverse osmosis in the country, which at the time was the largest plant of its kind in the world, over the years this process has been implemented little was done to concretely improve the ‘capture, recovery and storage’ of water from other sources.
With reverse osmosis plants now being among the largest consumers of energy in the country, while also increasing our dependency on fuel, this undoubtedly has an adverse effect on our greenhouse gas emissions, thus urgently calling for us to seek new solutions and technologies to overcome such obstacles.
It is pointless referring to water as blue gold unless we show the political will to address one of the most damaging elements of this dire situation: nitrate levels, which in certain parts of the island have long been at an atrocious level.
Many people might argue that climate change will only impact our water supplies when in actual fact it also impacts directly on our water quality, thus risking making a bad situation worse.
In the light of such a scenario we need to avoid fragmentation and duplication when addressing such daunting tasks.
I am saying this because although the main regulator remains the Malta Resources Authority, we have had input from various sources which risk stepping on each other’s toes – the WSC, the MRA, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority as well as the Climate Adaptation Report.
Under such circumstances a holistic plan is urgently needed to also address the further rise in nitrate levels, as well as the challenges of the EU Water Directive itself.
Our country requires a water resource plan that is doable and practical.
We cannot expect to solve a 25-year-old problem through shock therapy within the period of a single legislature.
On the other hand, complacency is a luxury we can ill afford.
In my humble opinion, complacency is exactly the message the WSC CEO and his minister sent when they tried to put our minds at rest that only water quality might suffer. Particularly since we were given to understand that water supply will remain an unproblematic non-issue.
Leo Brincat is the Labour Party's main spokesman on the environment, sustainable development and climate change.
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Antoine Vella
Jun 25th 2012, 09:57
Leo Brincat, what about the rumours you were spreading about animal carcasses being brought over from Libya?
How can you expect anything you say to be taken seriously after that bit of "creative alarmism"?
Marco Cremona
Jun 24th 2012, 17:09
As a water activist, I am always pleased when anybody writes anything about water. But I am especially pleased when somebody from the PL writes about water because this party has, so far, kept its cards very close to its chest when it comes to water policy (or more importantly water action).
I will not comment much on what I think about the MRRA's (PN's?) Water Policy launched a few weeks ago, because I have done so on various occasions and will not repeat. Suffice to say that it lacks targets, timeframes on concrete measurable deliverables, and a general lack of commitment and sense of urgency required to solve a crisis that started in the mid-70s but which has accelerated in the last years. Fact of the matter is that today (despite all the talk about borehole metering, regulation, bowser tracking etc.) we are pumping much more from an over-extracted aquifer than ever before.
To date, the PL's only hint re. its water policy, uttered over the last couple of months, and repeated by Mr. Brincat is 'capture, recovery and storage'. Not much to go by, is it?
Mr. Brincat adds some more substance in today's article : "Our country requires a water resource plan that is doable and practical. We cannot expect to solve a 25-year-old problem through shock therapy within the period of a single legislature. On the other hand, complacency is a luxury we can ill afford."
What I read from the above, in my own words is, "we will make (some?) investments in rainwater harvesting (the 'capture, recovery and storage' bit) and we will also prepare and implement a (new?) plan/policy which will take us somewhere, but not all the way (in sustainability terms)".
I appreciate that it is a tough call to achieve water sustainability in 5 years, given the scale of the problem at present (Note: water sustainability, in my view, means meeting the needs of the population and various economic sectors (like agriculture, tourism) without over-extracting our aquifers and with the minimum possible dependence on unsustainable sources like reverse osmosis).
Indeed, I will be the first to admit that it will take decades of commitment and determined action to get the aquifers to a good status. But this cannot be an excuse NOT TO START. We cannot continue to look at the sins of the past, without addressing the sins of the present!
Yes, we need a resource plan but a long term plan without measurable short-term targets serves only to win elections and not get us on the road to water sustainability.
The PL need not start from scratch. The excellent FAO Malta Water Resources Review 2006 (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/a0994e/a0994e.pdf) provides the blueprint for a water resources plan which can take us on the road to recovery, provided we want to get there, eventually.
This document was prepared in 2005 and was originally intended to be a guiding document for a first Malta Water Policy to be issued in 2006. This 2006 Water Policy never saw the light of day, probably because it was/is considered to be too politically damaging.
The 2006 Water Resources Review document presents our politicians with some tough decisions. Is the PL ready to bite the bullet? Will the PL commit to meeting intermediate (i.e. 5 year) targets as part of a plan that targets sustainability by say 2020?
Some of the tough issues that need to be addressed are:
How will the PL allocate the 23 million m3 sustainable yield from our aquifers among WSC, agriculture, tourism, industry when we are probably extracting more than 40 million m3? Will the PL be ready to propose and implement a moratorium on irrigated land? Will the PL have a policy that rewards water-efficient crops and penalises high-water consuming varieties, even if this may impact on some producers in the short term? Will the PL ban the extraction/sale of water extracted from private boreholes, even if this may result in reduced profits for some sectors that have 'got used' to having free/cheap water? Is the PL committed to track down owners of illegal boreholes and apply an effective deterrent? Is the PL committed to religiously enforce the rainwater cistern-in-every-building regulation even if this leads to a (slight) increase in property prices? Is the PL committed to implement the Water Pricing regulations as required by the EU Water Framework Directive and which should have been in place by 1 Jan 2010? Will the PL implement a sewage tariff (Malta is the only country in the EU not having a sewage tariff, another requirement of the Directive)?
I could go on and on.
I hope the PL provides some insight on the above in its electoral manifesto. Indeed, the country cannot afford the luxury of electing a(ny) party that does not make clear commitments towards addressing the water deficit. The situation has reached crisis point, and, as Mr. Brincat himself stated, we can ill afford to remain complacent.
Note that I am not talking about resolving our water debt in 5 years (i.e. getting back what we have lost); I am talking about addressing the water deficit (i.e. not letting the situation get any worse). I think that setting targets to reduce the deficit within the next 5 years is a duty for any political party contesting the elections this time round and I hope the PL (and the other parties) has the courage to rise to the challenge.
Please choose the reason of your report below: