The call for land reclamation proposals would not identifyspecific sites but the private sector was free to make its own suggestions, sources said yesterday.
We have already identified environmental problems caused by the dumping taking place on the spoil grounds out at sea
The announcement on land reclamation was made by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Monday alongside a series of public-private partnerships that will include a call for expressions of interest on a cruise passenger terminal in Gozo.
The call for land reclamation should be out in the coming weeks, a spokeswoman for the Planning Parliamentary Secretary said. However, she could not provide any further details, saying that internal talks on the call were still ongoing.
News of the project has already ruffled feathers among environmentalists, who largely oppose reclamation because of the indiscriminate damage caused to sea habitats.
Alan Deidun, a marine and biology University lecturer, was among the most critical of the plans, pointing to the damage that could be done to the seabed and underwater habitats generally. Unlike construction on land, where pollution could be relatively concentrated, the effects from dumping at sea, which is what reclamation entails, could spread widely, also due to currents, Dr Deidun said.
He referred specifically to Malta’s protected meadows of Posidonia Oceanica, a seaweed that provides an eco-system for a host of organisms and fish life.
“We have already identified environmental problems caused by the dumping taking place on the spoil grounds out at sea,” he said, pointing out that, due to Malta’s deep waters, any reclamation would realistically need to take place within 30 metres off the coast.
He referred to two unfavourable studies carried out for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in 2005 and 2007, as did Astrid Vella of Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar.
“If it were not for the fact that Mepa has already carried out studies on land reclamation, one could approach the subject with an open mind but the studies have shown that land reclamation in sites close to shore causes unacceptable damage to marine life,” she said, adding that the Government should instead focus on using the island’s surplus of more than 75,000 vacant properties.
The idea of reclamation had been first floated by the previous Administration in 2005 but the plans were abandoned following negative technical reports.
A study by UK firm Scott Wilson, in 2007, had looked into two possible sites for land reclamation, one in the south at Ix-Xagħjra, limits of Żabbar, and at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, opposite the Magħtab landfill.
Eventually, the second site was ditched due to its conflict with the interconnector cable between Malta and Sicily. The report flagged the environmental risks of such projects and concluded that reclamation should be considered as a last resort to solving the problem of excess construction.
The country dumps a large part of about 1.2 million tons of construction waste into abandoned quarries and another chunk of that waste goes into a marine spoil ground a few kilometres northeast of the Grand Harbour.
When the quarries are exhausted, the spoil ground will be the only alternative left.
However, before Malta gets to that situation, the report recommends implementing policies to reduce the amount of construction waste as much as possible.
Overall, the idea of reclamation, however, was mostly scuttled on the financial argument.
The report had estimated then that every cubic metre of reclaimed land could cost anywhere between €15 and €40.
Dr Muscat, however, has been pushing the idea forcefully, ever since he first suggested it in an interview with The Sunday Times last June.
Speaking in Parliament on Monday, he sold the project as a means to boost the country’s economic growth and kick-start the construction industry, which has seen a prolonged slowdown over the past years, particularly due to oversupply of apartments and dwellings on the lower-end of the scale.
He also announced that the Government would be issuing a call for a cruise passenger terminal and a yacht marina in Gozo, a project he had also spoken about before the election, indicating Mġarr as a possible site.
However, former Tourism Minister Mario de Marco, who in the previous legislature was also responsible for the planning authority, yesterday appealed for caution on reclamation plans precisely on the basis of econ-omic considerations.
He said the Government should be careful not to ruin Malta’s attractiveness and should study carefully any such reclam-ation proposals.
He made specific reference to the thriving diving industry, arguing that the country’s underwater environment was as important as its countryside and should be safeguarded.
mmicallef@timesofmalta.com