EIA for gas power plant ‘unsatisfactory’, ‘lacks required details’ – Din l-Art Helwa

Environment NGO Din l-Art Helwa has expressed its dissatisfaction with the draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report pointing towards lack of important details, describing it as incomplete.

The EIA report for the new gas power plant was conducted in two months after a project description statement was submitted to MEPA. The EIA was carried out by ERSLI.

Part of the process is to send the draft report to a number of environment NGOs for review, one of which is Din l-Art Helwa. The NGO was highly critical of the report, and has told MEPA that the EIA "cannot be considered complete until further details of this major project are made available for assessment".

According to the document as seen by the Din l-Art Helwa, the report itself acknowledged that "the level of detail available for assessment is limited". This is due to the fact that the operator of the new power plant has not yet been selected.

"The report is not comprehensive since the consultants engaged to carry out the studies do not yet have the full details of the proposed project," it explained.

An EIA report is carried out to help understand the consequences of new projects on the environment. It can modify and improve the design of a development proposal and proposes measures for impact monitoring and management. Public consultation is mandatory.

Din l-Art Helwa said the EIA should ensure that both the authorities and the public are fully aware of the environmental implications of a project before a decision is made.

"It must assess all predicted significant impacts of a proposal, and examine how each adverse impact may be mitigated and reduced. Din l-Art Helwa maintains that this will not be possible until more details of the project are presented," it insisted.

The lack of detail, Din l-Art Helwa added, pointed towards unsatisfactory information about the amount of land reclamation, excavation and dredging that will be required.

"Some of the consultants themselves express a low level of confidence in their own predictions due to a lack of data. The report does not evaluate any technological alternatives, and does not present a clear comparative assessment of the environmental impacts of the three proposed layouts."

ERSLI planning consultants were chosen to coordinate the EIA in the absence of a public tender. Instead of issuing a public tender, the government sought a number of quotations, which were subsequently evaluated, a spokesperson for Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi had told MaltaToday.