Less than half the registered agricultural boreholes have been metered – four years since the original 2010 deadline.
Meanwhile, the government has admitted EU deadlines for restoring groundwater quality would not be met.
To date, 1,218 boreholes have been metered and the remaining 2,300 “are expected to be metered by the first months of 2015”, according to the Energy Ministry that is also responsible for water conservation.
Groundwater abstraction sources used by commercial and industrial sectors have been metered but this does not change the fact that Malta will miss the 2015 deadline set by the EU for the improvement in groundwater quality.
“It is expected that the implementation of measures... will not immediately be reflected in an improvement in the status of the groundwater body,” the ministry said.
Restoring the country’s groundwater body will require some 40 years, according to studies conducted by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency and the British Geological Survey.
The installation of meters on agricultural boreholes started almost a year after the original deadline. Former Resources Minister George Pullicino had launched the first metered borehole in November 2011.
He had attributed the missed deadline to “tendering delays” and the previous administration’s desire to target EU funds.
Once meters were installed, the government was meant to monitor water extraction and usage rates with the intention of setting water quotas for farmers.
Delays in the installation of meters mean no quotas have yet been established.
There are 5,710 registered boreholes in Malta and another 2,282 in Gozo, according to government figures. This does not include unregistered boreholes or new ones created illegally since the moratorium was introduced in 2008.
Water bowsers were also supposed to be fitted with tracking devices and water level sensors as part of a series of actions to track down and stop the unlawful extraction of groundwater. This was announced in 2009 but nothing has happened yet.
The Malta Resources Authority said a public consultation exercise on the national water management plan was ongoing.
Almost 40 million cubic metres of groundwater were extracted in 2012, according to the NSO. This is almost double the amount extracted in 2004, proving that delays in addressing the abuse of groundwater are aggravating aquifer problems. Only 23 million cubic meters of groundwater are sustainably available for extraction.
The groundwater body is only replenished by rainwater absorbed into the ground and slowly, over decades, percolates into groundwater bodies. Since only a fixed amount of rainwater is making its way to groundwater bodies every year, that is the amount that is sustainably available for extraction.
Extracting more lowers the volume of freshwater within the aquifer, displacing it with increasing amounts of seawater.
In addition, trends in fertilising agricultural land over the past few decades have led to excessive nitrates coming into contact with rainwater and carried down into the aquifers.
Between excessive nitrates and excessive salinity due to over-extraction, the water produced by almost 90 per cent of Malta’s aquifers no longer meets EU standards for safe drinking water.