Irresponsible. That is how former Water Services Corporation chairman Tancred Tabone labelled the statement made by the Water Services’ Corporation’s CEO, Mark Muscat, to the effect that Malta will never run out of water. The label is very appropriate.

Irresponsible is also the way the competent entities – WSC, the Malta Resources Authority, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and the “responsible” ministry – have behaved (or misbehaved) over the years with regard to Malta’s water supply. Thus, for example, we have seen Mepa issue planning permissions for luxury villas with a sizeable outdoor swimming pool as well as a second indoor pool to boot but with a rainwater reservoir that goes nowhere near the capacity required by law. Indeed, Mepa rarely if ever bothers to check the capacity of rainwater reservoirs in proposed developments.

The reason why during the rainy season we often see sewer manhole covers popping up in the middle of the road is because so many private properties discharge rainwater surface runoff straight into the public sewer, which is unlawful, instead of a reservoir, which is often inexistent and almost always inadequate. Yet, this does not seem to bother either the “responsible” ministry, or the WSC, or Mepa, or MRA.

Instead, Malta will never run out of water, we are told, and the implication is that it is alright if we do not add the bother of building a rainwater reservoir to the already very demanding hassle of having to build an outdoor pool and a second indoor one. It is alright to cut a corner here. After all, Malta will never run out of water and the flooded roads are living testimony to this.

The problem is, of course, that the water is in the wrong place. Instead of flowing into resevoirs it flows through our roads and sewers causing untold havoc while on its way to the sea, that inexhaustible reservoir which will guarantee that Malta will never run out of water.

However, while rainwater starts off as pure, clean potable water, by the time it ends up in the sea it collects all sorts of imaginable (and unimaginable) pollutants and finally blends with seawater. Alas, bringing it back to somewhere near its original state of purity costs an eye from one’s face.

In August 2010, almost two years ago, the Minister for Resources and Rural Affairs presented a consultative document on the sustainable management of (the presumably inexhaustible) water resources in Malta and, in March 2011, after an eight-month gestation, the ministry gave birth to a water management plan. But by that time the European Commission had already highlighted the fact that one of the main pillars of any water strategy was a proper pricing policy.

“A proper pricing policy” is one that covers the cost of extracting potable water from seawater where we keep unlawfully dumping crystal clear rainwater. When that cost becomes prohibitive, Malta would still be able to produce all the water it needs but it would not be able to afford using it.

This is what Mr Muscat forgot to explain.