Last Tuesday, Mepa approved an application for the building of a jetty and the placing of a tanker carrying 125,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas in the middle of one of our busiest, highly congested harbours, surrounded by the residential areas of Marsaxlokk and Birżebbuġa.
Both prior to and during the hearing, Mepa was warned that it could not possibly consider approving the application until a full maritime impact assessment was carried out as Mepa had promised it would at the public consultation hearing on January 28.
When it became apparent that Mepa was not going to do that, Ray and Gabriel Bugeja, two residents of Marsaxlokk, sent a judicial letter to Mepa asking them to refrain from taking a decision until a full maritime impact assessment was carried out and until the Occupational Health and Safety Authority expert George Papadakis explained what would happen if the ignition source happened to be next to the release point of the LNG which would turn into gas in seconds.
The importance of the judicial letter cannot be overstated, given the responsibility of the board members under the law. A priori, they were being warned that it would be irresponsible for them to take a decision before ensuring that these two hugely important issues were resolved.
It became abundantly clear at the beginning of the sitting that, to my amazement, the judicial letter sent to the chairman and CEO as judicial representatives of the authority had not even been read out to the board members, and when Ryan Callus asked for the letter to be read out, the chairman at first dragged his feet. It was read out eventually.
The importance of the conduct of a full maritime impact assessment became even more apparent as the hearing dragged on. It was clear to all who wanted to listen, and if I were a Mepa board member I would have had my ears wide open, that a maritime impact assessment is not only about whether or not ships can go in and out with the floating storage unit (FSU) and its supply vessel in situ.
We were shown simulations of this being possible; however, there was no indication of what the safety zone around the tanker and supply vessel would be. Would the container ships still be able to go in and out and turn around once the safety exclusion zone was in place, or was there not going to be a safety zone?
The chairman seemed to be under the totally erroneous impression that all a maritime impact assessment did was figure out ship movements. How wrong!
A maritime impact assessment would also assess the effect of the wind and waves in what are known to be ferocious seas produced by storms blowing from the southeast, bang in the face of the LNG carrier and the jetty; a maritime impact assessment would assess professionally what the increased risk of a collision would be and what the effects on the residents, fishermen, local and international businesses and power station would be if such a collision took place. This would affect the very feasibility of the positioning of the jetty and ship.
The importance of the conduct of a full maritime impact assessment became even more apparent as the hearing dragged on
It was only two board members who understood the seriousness of the matter – Nationalist MP Callus and Alex Vella, probably one of the very few totally objective people on that board with no political allegiances. He could immediately see the absolute insanity of approving such an application without conducting a maritime impact assessment. Clearly he and Callus have nothing to fear of falling foul of their responsibilities under the Act.
In the meantime, various people of repute had tried to appeal to the government to avoid all risks and consider the construction of a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) outside port. That would have eliminated one of the most critical aspects of the maritime impact assessment, since in that case there would be no concern of severe seas rushing into Marsaxlokk Bay bang into the jetty, FSU and possibly its supply ship.
However, as the debate was developing, we were informed that the government had been advised that the concern expressed was nothing more than scaremongering tactics of people who do not know what they are talking about, because it was really safer for the vessel to be in rather than out.
Please do tell it to the marines. And precisely because this is, with respect, totally incorrect, only last Thursday the government announced it is considering building a breakwater.
Why on earth would the government want to build a breakwater if it is so safe? Because it is not an all-weather port, that’s why, which is why I have been insisting for the past two months on a full maritime impact assessment before Mepa takes a decision.
Well, now the die is cast and Mepa has decided, and we were informed that the maritime impact assessment will take place in ‘Phase 2’ after the application is approved. Do not even try to understand the logic, there just isn’t any.
The Mepa board has already made one big mistake.
I appeal to Mepa not to make a second – it needs to ensure that a maritime impact assessment is indeed carried out and the full maritime impact of placing an LNG carrier of massive proportions regularly accompanied by another of equal proportions attached to a jetty sticking out into Marsaxlokk Bay must be fully considered before a single stone or piece of steel is laid down.
Ann Fenech is a maritime lawyer and the president of the executive committee of the Nationalist Party.