Marsa residents living in the Spencer Hill area have long suffered from foul smells that occasionally fill the air and although the problem has been pushed off the news agenda it has not vanished.

Over the past two years the residents’ plight was eclipsed by complaints about the same problem made by planning authority employees working at Hexagon House in the neighbourhood.

Employees were evacuated some 50 times from the office block since 2008 because of noxious fumes. The last time this happened was a month ago when workers walked in protest to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s head office in Floriana.

Since then the authority has agreed with unions that it must tackle the problem by carrying out air quality studies and trying to find a solution, while employees have moved out to the head office in Floriana.

Environment Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco shifted his office to Hexagon House to experience the problem himself. The move is a temporary one but Dr de Marco has extended his stay beyond the week he initially planned to stay.

Residents speaking to The Times on condition of anonymity welcome the authority’s commitment to find a solution but they do so with a sense of indignation.

“Mepa employees can leave their workplace when the smells come but we cannot abandon our homes. We have lived day and night with the smells for more than a decade,” a 64-year-old woman said.

She has lived in the Spencer Hill area for more than 40 years and says the problem started when a waste oils recycling plant started operating just metres away from her home towards the end of the 1990s. Mepa had granted the permit despite objections by the Marsa local council.

“The owner of the company denies the problem is caused by his facility but the foul smell has been with us since the plant started operating,” she says.

Outside, the air is punctuated by wafts of noxious fumes that dissipate and reappear after some time depending on the direction and strength of the wind. Bad smells percolate inside homes even when windows and doors are kept closed.

The woman said the fumes sometimes smelled like rotten eggs, making the situation inside the house unbearable.

“The parliamentary secretary has brought his office to Hexagon House to experience the problem but I can offer Mario de Marco a bedroom to come and live here for some time,” she says, half-joking about Dr de Marco’s decision to temporarily move to Mepa’s office block some 100 metres away.

Her complaints are not the only ones. The block of houses, built just before World War II, is home to some 40 residents, mostly pensioners. The houses on the front have balconies and roofs that literally look over the tanks where the waste oils are stored and processed.

An 81-year-old man, who also asked to remain anonymous, says the smell resembles that of rotten onions. Having spent a lifetime working in tank cleaning operations on ships, he is certain the smells come from the waste oils recycling facility.

He has been living close by for the past 80 years after his parents moved out of Valletta before the war.

“They have to heat the oil to some 80C and the operation creates fumes. It does not bother me because I worked all my life in environments that brought me in contact with fuels but it is not nice to constantly live with these smells,” he says, with an air of resignation.

Residents feel helpless and all they can do is hope Mepa lives up to its commitment to find a solution.

Marsa mayor Francis Debono has his fingers crossed too. Standing just outside the recycling facility he says the authority made a mistake when it first gave the company a permit to operate so close to residents.

In 1995 the council commissioned university professor Victor Axiak to evaluate the potential impact of the waste oils recycling facility when the permit was still being considered by Mepa.

Prof. Axiak had concluded that the most significant hazards were associated with atmospheric emission of certain contaminants, especially in a site that has a high population and employee density in the immediate vicinity of the plant.

The report had also warned about the possibility of “oil mists” being created because of the very nature of the job.

“Mepa ignored us at the time and Marsa residents have been suffering ever since,” the mayor said, pointing out that when the smells are strong people complain of headaches and shortness of breath.

Today, the waste oils facility has an environment permit from Mepa, which imposes certain conditions on its operation. This has not eliminated the problem of foul smells though and last month Labour environment spokesman Leo Brincat even questioned the effectiveness of the authority’s monitoring.

“Residents have suffered for far too long and I hope the authority takes this into consideration along with the complaints of its own employees,” Mr Debono said.

Whether Mepa’s renewed efforts to find a solution to the problem will yield positive results remains to be seen but the mayor insists that in this day and age he cannot accept the fact that no solution can be found.