Comparisons are odious, but sewage plants are necessary

For a populist like Joseph Muscat, it is easy to compare the unsightly sewage treatment plant at Ta'Barkat in Xghajra with the glitz of a new brand new university and the rarefied air of an educational establishment.

Muscat seems oblivious to the fact that before Malta built its three waste-water treatment treatment plants – in Anchor Bay, Ras il-Hobz in Gozo, and at Ta’ Barkat between Marsaskala and Xghajra – all of Malta’s sewage was dumped at sea.

Interviewed on One Radio on Sunday, Muscat claimed that while the former government proposed an ODZ sewage plant, his government would give the people of the south a university. 

But the comparison is unfair: building over 90,000 square metres of land creates new environmental problems, including traffic, pollution and construction waste; the development of sewage treatment plant actually made the sea around us cleaner.

Before the commissioning of Ta’ Barkat, 20 million cubic metres a year of raw sewage – untreated faeces to illustrate the idea further – went down the drains and found their way in Wied Ghammieq, to be pumped out a few metres off the coast.

The prevailing winds and currents, and the intermittent malfunction of the pump, usually meant that the the waste discharge often ended up being carried along the Xghajra coast to Zonqor Point, past St Thomas Bay and down to Marsaxlokk.

These problems have not been entirely eliminated, because of regular malfunctions to the plant, which is often clogged with farm-waste disposed illegally into the public drains.

But despite these hitches, the three plants had a positive impact on the marine environment, making most of Malta’s coastline safer to swim in. Malta now boasts of having the second cleanest bathing water in Europe, after Cyprus.

Necessarily, they had to be located on the coastline – which is outside development zones – but they were beneficial to the environment, except for the fact that a valuable resource like treated sewage is still being dumped at sea instead of being recycled.  

This problem is now being currently addressed through the installation of technology aimed at further purification of water to make it better suited for use by farmers.

Questionably, in 2007 the Nationalist government relocated the largest plant –originally envisaged at Wied Ghammieq – to a pristine site at Ta’ Barkat to accommodate the new Smart City.

Ghammieq was already the site of a sewage outfall, so its redevelopment as a sewage treatment plant would have had a lesser impact on the environment.

Unlike Sadeen’s ‘American University’, the actual development of Smart City took place on a built-up and derelict industrial area which was included in development zones in 2006.

But the project paved the way for two developments on pristine land: the new 643-metre dual carriageway between Smart City and Zabbar, yet to be approved by MEPA, and the Ta’ Barkat plant, spread over 45,000 square metres, and processing 50,000 cubic metres of sewage every day.

Doing this meant MEPA had to change local plans that had only been approved a year earlier, so that the sewage plant could be relocated and for the new road to pass on farmland.

The changes were done without a Strategic Environment Impact Assessment – a requirement for all plans which have an impact on the environment. In 2009, the European Commission found no breach in the way the new local plans were approved without a SEA.

Changing the goalposts again

Eight years later MEPA has to change its approved policies again to accommodate the American University, because the area at Zonqor Point is already designated in the local plan as part of a proposed national park. 

Any change to this designation requires an amendment to the local plan, which earmarks l-Ghassa tal-Munxar in Marsaskala and the coastal stretch Zonqor Point and Blata l-Bajda (Xghajra), as a natural park.

And yet, the office of MEPA chief executive officer Johann Buttigieg has deemed the site earmarked for the campus ‘acceptable’. On his part, Muscat says the natural park will be “complementary” to the ODZ campus development. The developers, Sadeen Group, have also committed to part-finance the natural park.

Effectively it turns out that the developers will be taking part of the proposed natural park, which already carries the seal of approval in a legally binding local plan.  

Despite designating the area as a natural park as far back as 2006, the PN government did not proceed to approve a management plan to implement these policies. In fact, part of the site was proposed for the relocation of a holiday caravan site in 2009, but the idea was scrapped after NGOs objected.

Nine years later under a Labour government the natural park is effectively being reduced in size to accommodate an ODZ campus.