Malta needs to carry out a study about the feasibility of further treating waste water so that it may be used for industry and agriculture, the Malta Water Association said this morning.

Speaking at a press conference this morning, hydrologist Marco Cremona, secretary of the recently-formed association, noted that all drainage water was currently treated in very expensive sewage treatment plants. Unfortunately, however, the treated water was then still pumped into the sea.

He said the association was calling for a study on the feasibility of further treating the water so that it could be suitable for secondary use.

Such a study, he said, should include ways how excessive levels of salt were no longer pumped into the sewerage system - by industry and through illegal connections such as when hotels used seawater as their toilet water and then dumped it into the sewerage system. The study would also need to include systems how purified water could be pumped from the treatment plants to the users.

Vincent Gauci, a member of the association, said Malta needed to improve its sewerage system. He suggested that a sewage tariff, particularly for industry, should be considered on the basis of the polluter pays principle. However, industry could benefit from cheaper water rates if sewage water was reused, he said.

Using treated sewage water would also save the country some of the considerable expense which went into the production of first rate water, he added.

Mr Gauci also called for stricter enforcement to clamp down on illegal groundwater extraction.