Cement silo poses serious risk to grain supplied by Kordin Grain Terminal – FAA

Green NGO Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA) has urged parliamentary secretary Michael Farrugia to take action and react to "alarming news" that the grain supplied by Kordin Grain Terminal runs a serious risk of being poisoned by cement dust from "an illegal silo".

Kordin grain Terminal Company Limited has opened a court case to stop the development of a cement silo in close proximity to its silos which are used to store grain used in animal feed and bread making.

The cement silo is owned by UC Ltd.

"What does it take to get the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for MEPA, and a doctor to boot, to react to the alarming news that the grain we are supplied with by the Kordin Grain Terminal runs the serious risk of being poisoned by cement dust from an illegal silo?" FAA manager Antonio Anastasi said, in a letter addressed to Farrugia.

In early September 2013 Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar brought to MEPA's attention that a cement Silo was being built without a permit two meters away from Kordin Grain Terminal grain conveyor belt, raising concerns regarding the health risks through contamination of grain by cement.

Asked whether any enforcement action had been taken, MEPA had at the time informed FAA that, with the silo still being constructed and not in operation, "there was nothing more to add from an enforcement perspective".

According to Anastasi, "so serious is the risk of the grain being contaminated, that the Environmental Health Directorate ordered both the cement silo owners and the grain importers to prepare risk assessments".

Anastasi said the first report by Dr Julian Mamo and Dr John Paul Cauchi on behalf of Kordin Grain Terminal, shed very grave reservations and concerns on the serious risk to the public, especially children, of poisoning of the grain by even minute amounts of cement.

"Their conclusions are that it is not an acceptable risk irrespective of how safe the silo is," Anastasi wrote.

The second, authored by Dr. Cali-Corleo for UC Ltd, stated in conclusion that, "it is unlikely that this silo operation will be completely free from all fugitive emissions and so the possibility that the grain being handled nearby will be subject to a level of contamination from cement dust remains present even following the application of best practices".

Anastasi said that after pursuing the illegality for five months, and getting no response, FAA submitted to MEPA a formal complaint stating that UC Ltd had built a silo on Laboratory Wharf without the necessary planning permissions. Therefore, FAA had argued, the Enforcement Department was obliged to immediately take steps for direct action.

"Our complaint and three subsequent reminders, which included the newer health risk information, are to-date unacknowledged by the present MEPA CEO, Chairman as well as other MEPA management. Nor did we get a response from you, the Parliamentary Secretary," Anastasi told Farrugia.

"We hope that you, as a doctor, would immediately react to such alarming health risks, but disappointingly other than supporting MEPA's enforcement and management's lack of responsibility and  'directing us' to investigate we have not received neither a satisfactory answer nor direct action," he wrote.