The planning authority’s environment unit has slammed a “premature” proposal to relocate a petrol station from Pietà to a protected area in Mosta on grounds that the developer did not provide enough measures to prevent potential contamination of the aquifer.
The Environment Protection Directorate highlighted the lack of planning policies that regulate the development of petrol stations while setting a limit to how many petrol stations were “really justified”.
“The directorate considers the proposed development as pre-mature and objects to further open-ended or ad hoc commitments for new or extended petrol station developments outside scheme,” it said.
In its recommendations on the assessment report, commissioned by the developer, the environment unit disagreed with the methodo-logy used, which, it said, was not comprehensive enough.
The application is for the relocation of a fuel pump from its original location on a pavement in Pietà and for the change of use of an existing yard in Mosta to a fuel station with a footprint of almost 4,000 square metres.
The project includes six fuel pumps, two diesel fuel tanks with a capacity of 60,000 litres each, another which holds 30,000 litres, a biodiesel tank with 30,000 litres and an unleaded people pump with a capacity of 60,000 litres.
The environment unit within the Malta Environment and Planning Authority recommended the project for refusal and pointed out, several times, that the methodology did not describe the significance of the impact before and after the mitigation measures.
“Since the report stops short of providing a robust prediction of the actual importance and significance of residual impacts, the directorate is not satisfied that the recommended measures provide a sufficiently effective and reliable pre-emptive solution to the anti-cipated impacts, particularly impacts related to contamin-ation,” the unit said.
It said it agreed that removing the fuel pump from Pietà was “beneficial” and that the Mosta site was preferable to agricultural land. But it disagreed that the take-up of land could be described “beneficial” and, instead, should have been listed as “neutral” or “not significant”.
This justification “is being overstretched because the proposal extends way beyond simple relocation ‘like with like’ and in practice entails a substantial enlargement and the inclusion of additional development”, the unit said.
“It is not clear how such conclusions (about the various impacts) were reached, what their justific-ation is and what is the impact significance,” it noted.
The site, which is outside scheme, is being used for the storage and maintenance of heavy vehicles and the licence for the fuel station will be transferred from a kerb-side fuel pump in Pietà.
The report also listed dust emissions during construction as “small” and the emissions of the fine but hazardous dust known as PM10 from the plant and vehicles transporting materials as having “no measurable impact”.
However, the emissions of benzene from the station were described as “adverse”.
The assessment reports listed a number of measures such as water sprays to reduce dust, a vapour recovery system and suitable screening methods.
Even with these mitigation measures, the environment unit still identified “potentially import-ant residual impacts” related to the contamination of surface water and groundwater from fuel spillage or leakages and on the aquifer recharge zone.
It expressed concern over dust generation during construction. It said it was also worried about the emissions of benzene, for example, from the station.