A mound of silt removed from a Qawra inlet and then dumped in a swimming area some metres upshore will be excavated from the sea for a second time and stored on land after it cause uproar among bathers.
The St Paul’s Bay council should take the honourable route and make a public apology
The decision to store the silt on land was taken following a Monday meeting between officials from the St Paul’s Bay council and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.
Sunbathers were horrified when a truck carrying a full load of silt, replete with seabed rubbish, was unceremoniously dropped into the bathers’ area on Monday.
It later transpired that the silt dumping was part of a clearing exercise for a nearby slipway, which had become clogged with sand and silt over recent years.
Mepa pinned the blame on the St Paul’s Bay council, saying it had failed to obtain the necessary authorisation before dumping the sand.
Enforcement officers were not on site, a Mepa spokesman had said, because the authority was not told the works had started.
And the blame game continued yesterday, with St Paul’s Bay mayor Mario Salerno insisting the mess was a problem of Mepa’s own making.
“Our original suggestion was to use the sand we dug up elsewhere on land. But Mepa insisted on it being thrown back into the sea – and the only place where that could be done was the bathing area further ashore from the slipway,” Mr Salerno said.
The silt is now being taken to an undisclosed location in Qawra, where it will be stored “temporarily” until a long-term solution can be found.
Mr Salerno denied the authority’s statement that it was not informed of the works, showing journalists an e-mail dated August 22 in which the council secretary informed a Mepa official that “works should be starting tomorrow”.
Mr Salerno felt Mepa was using his council as a scapegoat for its own internal communications failings, although he stopped short of demanding an apology from the authority.
A Mepa spokesman had no such qualms, saying that instead of trying to shift blame, “the St Paul’s Bay council should take the honourable route and make a public apology” for having dumped the sand.
The dumping, a Mepa official reiterated, was unauthorised. While Mepa had given the council the green light to remove sand from the slipway, it had also asked the council to specify the volume of sand to be moved before deciding how and where to dump it. “This information was not forthcoming,” the spokesman added.
A method statement given to journalists yesterday, which local council officials said they had presented to Mepa last May, estimated that 200 cubic metres of sand would be displaced by the works. It, however, provides no maximum volume estimate.
Yesterday afternoon, an excavator and dump truck were working in tandem, removing more unwanted silt from the quay alongside the slipway.
“I don’t know about the controversy,” one young man told The Times, “but at least we can now use the slipway for our boat.
“My dad’s been wanting this for years. He’s delighted.”