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Malta is faced with a serious environmental problem, which gets more pressing as each day passes and the Herculean inaction of our government in dealing with it is positively terrifying.
As reported recently, a report prepared by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) drew attention to the gravity of the threat to Malta’s water resources from private boreholes and warned that the government may eventually have to double household water bills if no action is taken to safeguard Malta’s ground water resources.
The writing on the wall has been there for a long time. Our precious aquifer is being plundered through illegal boreholes to such an extent that the aquifer will soon become too saline to use owing to seepage of sea water. This very same aquifer will also be further threatened in the future, when the effects of global climate change begin to bite with diminished rainfall and rising sea levels. Either way Malta will face a very serious problem from the loss of a major source of water unless something is done now.
Characteristically, the response of our government to the FAO report consists of anodyne ministerial stonewalling about “soon being in a position to finalise… work on the water policy” and “waiting for the completion of studies” (of which nothing has been heard until now).
What really takes the biscuit is the consummately worded comment on FAO’s warning, namely, that it “only raises unnecessary alarm to consumers instead of addressing the true dimension of the problem – that of managing water resources holistically and in an integrated manner by balancing our socio-economic constraints with environmental sustainability”.
Given our government’s current attitude of putting money and votes above all else, this wonderfully myopic and evasive comment might translate roughly into: “There is no money to be made from this and it will lose us votes at the next election, so let’s just put it on the backburner”.
So it is with all other matters to do with the future welfare of Malta. Our government continues to behave as though environmental problems will go away if they are ignored – or if report after report is thrown at them. It is not very reassuring to hear that reverse osmosis (RO) water “will cost less” because of “energy efficient devices and new membranes which are about to be installed in our RO facilities” since this will almost certainly be offset by rising oil prices. Does this mean that the madness of full reliance on RO is envisaged if the aquifer becomes unusable?
The aquifer problem certainly won’t go away, and our government must face up to it and act fast – and not continue in business as usual mode (as commented by FAO); as though everything is fine as long as the construction business is flourishing, regardless of the fact that more of our architectural heritage and countryside is being irrevocably destroyed in the process. Our dwindling tourism is expected to recover with a bit of tweaking, and a few votes have been saved because the hunters are temporarily appeased. All along the sun shines and the wind blows, but the government does not seem the least inclined to harness any of this free commodity to generate clean energy. So we remain 100 per cent dependent on fast-dwindling oil supplies for our energy needs, in addition to facing a catastrophic water shortage which will make us yet more dependent on oil to produce our water from the sea.
G Debono
St Julians |
