Malta’s first water management catchment plan is in final draft form and up for public consultation. The Malta Resources Authority draft plan may be viewed at www.mepa.org.mt/topic-waterpc. The MRA and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority share responsibility for different parts of, and the public is invited to comment on it.
A more fluid approach offered by the EU Water Framework Directive is set to provide a better safety net for Europe’s bodies of water – fresh, saltwater, surface or underground.
It has not been easy to fit Malta into the parameters laid out by the directive given the average scale of European water bodies. What would normally be a mere ‘river basin district’ in any other country in Europe has been replaced by a ‘water catchment district’ for the whole of Malta, including the Gozo channel.
The full cycle of water is taken into account. As it rains down and runs across land into seas, lakes and underground natural reservoirs, water varies in quantity and quality depending on different man-made effects it meets along the way.
Achieving a healthy groundwater situation, or ‘good status’ across Europe by 2015 is the main objective of the water framework directive.
Malta has three small, but temporary ‘rivers’ in Lunzjata valley, Wied il-Luq and Baħrija. L-Għadira tas-Sarraflu in Gozo is the closest we come to a ‘lake’, with Simar, Għadira, and il-Qattara listed in the same category.
Coastal waters fall under the directive too. Chemical and ecological status of waters around Malta, Gozo and Comino are colourfully displayed on various charts in the draft document. We always knew that harbour areas were not as clean as more remote marine areas yet the point at which blue turns to brown on the maps is striking.
Nitrate contamination from animal waste in some aquifers is at present six to seven times above safe levels. Sea water intrusion, a result of over-extraction, has been detected in at least five aquifers. Twelve out of a total of 15 aquifers are graded as being of poor status.
Any improvement as a result of better management may take a while to be seen, depending on varied response times for different aquifers.
The only groundwater considered to be of good quality is the Miżieb perched aquifer and the relatively unexploited Comino aquifer. These two are the only candidates to achieve ‘good status’ by 2015, a primarily aim the directive.
Less stringent targets for coastal aquifers at Pwales, Mellieħa, Marfa and the perched aquifer in Żebbuġ, Gozo, will be set in view of their degraded state. A six-year extension of the time it will take to achieve good status is proposed for five other perched aquifers. It is hoped to bring them in line by 2021 or “when natural conditions permit after the deadline”.
Mean sea level aquifer systems have relatively longer response times compared with smaller perched aquifers. An envisaged recovery for these aquifers by 2027 far exceeds the target date laid down by the directive, making it unlikely to attain the required good status within prescribed timeframes.
Although it is technically feasible to achieve good status (in terms of quantity) by using spare desalination capacity this is frowned upon. Bringing more reverse osmosis plants online would not only increase our emissions footprint, but also send the wrong message that the island’s water supplies are unlimited, notes the plan.
Proposed action to curb national water demand will meet with some challenges. The current practice is to ‘control dust’ at building sites by regular hosing with water. Added to that, lawn sprinklers are installed with abandon to keep large areas of grass green, when species more suited to our arid conditions would do better.
Many abuses take place, such as the filling of jerry cans from a decorative drinking water tap on the Sliema promenade.
Sure to generate maximum interest is the directive’s requirement to fully recover the real cost of water production, which is still subsidised.
In 2008, the cost recovery of all water services of the Water Services Corporation, including wastewater collection, treatment and discharge, was 65 per cent. It is estimated to have risen to 80 per cent recovery of costs this year, bringing us closer to full compliance of a 100 per cent return on the production cost.
The tariff increases for tap water are intended as a way to reach the delicate balance of sustainable water use by reducing water demand and discouraging wastage without inducing hardships.
Operational and surveillance monitoring (annual and six-yearly) is expected to reveal the number of extraction points and total volume extracted from sources such as boreholes.
Integrated valley management and water flow studies to be launched by Mepa will provide more useful data. Once this data is in hand a water exploitation index, or rate of withdrawal, will dispel any doubts over just how alarming the water crisis really is.
A new category of areas protected to safeguard drinking water both at the tap and from groundwater sources will replace the previous system.
Maintaining safe standards of water in swimming pools depends on how closely Health Department guidelines are followed. The majority of farmhouses with pools to let, some of which are listed on the Malta Tourism Authority’s register of accommodation (but many more are unlisted), are nowhere to be seen on the register of public swimming pools held by the Superintendent of Public Health.
As long as these pools are not registered it is highly unlikely that regular health checks can be carried out. A register of 334 indoor and outdoor, fresh and seawater pools in hotels, beauty spas, schools, lidos, camping sites, day centres and an indoor waterfall appears on the Environmental Health Unit website. Only three farmhouse pools are mentioned on this list.
The question of how many pools we can keep building and filling with fresh water has yet to be looked at in the water plan.
Submissions on issues related to groundwater and drinking water can be e-mailed to enquiry@mra.org.mt.
Comments regarding water in ‘protected areas’ and in coastal areas are to be e-mailed to water@mepa.org.mt.