The Water Services Corporation does not consider the newly approved petrol station in Rabat, which has drawn sharp criticism from environmentalist lobby groups, to be any riskier than other potential sources of contamination such as amateur mechanics and scrap yards.
Asked whether the WSC is equipped to detect any seepage and take immediate action if hydrocarbons – a carcinogenic chemical found in petrol stations – seep into its boreholes, WSC’s PRO Stephen Zerafa replied that “this is a hypothetical question and as such, any remedies would obviously have to respond to the particular circumstances of the case.”
The site of the new petrol station lies on the Mean Sea Level Aquifer, Malta’s most important source of drinking water and is surrounded by WSC’s potable water boreholes just to the north and east of the site, with the galleries of the Ta’ Qali Pumping Station to the east.
“If we were to be concerned about possible seepage of hydrocarbons we would worry much more about the hundreds of yards spread around the Maltese islands where thousands of trucks, cars and other heavy equipment are parked and repaired,” Stephen Zerafa told MaltaToday.
“This is not to mention the tens of thousands of ‘Saturday morning mechanics’ who use kerosene to wash engines or engine parts. Many of these simply dispose of used oil and kerosene on the nearest patch of wasteland,” Zerafa told MaltaToday.
According to the WSC’s PRO, most if not all of these yards, with their attendant kerosene, petrol and diesel, are situated on our aquifers.
“Yet we have never experienced infiltration of hydrocarbons,” Zerafa told MaltaToday.
While refusing to comment on the new petrol station at Buqana, Zerafa made it clear that the WSC is “less worried about potential seepage from a newly-built petrol station, since this would be built according to strict anti-leak criteria.”
According to the project’s EIS report, any potential leaks from underground pipes will be conducted into the tank farm which will have a hydrocarbon detector unit to denote the presence of any leaks.
“It is highly unlikely that fuels could leave the area undetected and reach the groundwater aquifer,” the report states.
At present the WSC carries only 50 tests per year for hydrocarbons on the water from consumers’ taps from more than 130 groundwater production sources.
This implies that WSC carries out less than one test a year for every two of its production sources.
Moreover the tests are made on water from consumers’ taps and not at the production wells, which suggests that, in the event of a contaminant reaching the aquifer, the consumer may have been supplied contaminated water weeks before detection by WSC.
But according to Zerafa, the WSC has never found any contamination from hydro-carbons in tap water.
In a statement issued last week, Flimkien Ghall-Ambjent Ahjar warned that with the development of the Buqana petrol station “carcinogenic hydrocarbons and vehicle emissions may end up in rainwater runoff that refills the aquifer, or directly into the aquifer in the event of a leak or major spill.”
Louis Cassar, the MEPA board resident environmental expert who voted against the project along with Labour’s representative Joe Brincat, said he was not convinced fuel would not run off down the road to Chadwick Lakes in the event of a major fuel leak.