Alternattiva Demokratika – the Green party has organised a petition among Lija residents calling on the European Ombudsman to intervene in the longest environmental campaign ever against air pollution, spreading over the last four decades.
Speaking opposite the polluting hard-stone Blokrete plant, on the Lija outskirts, AD’s highest officials yesterday flanked Lija resident Michael Zammit who single-handedly set the ball rolling at a European level after 37 years of inaction since a court sentence found the factory guilty of polluting the locality with airborne fine white dust.
“In a law suit Lady Mabel Strickland filed in 1970, Blokrete Ltd was found guilty of polluting air and therefore causing harm to residents living in areas close to their hard stone factory here,” Zammit said. “Back then, Malta’s legislation did not allow any action to be taken against the factory and the case was left sine die. Things have now changed and we all expect to live in an area that is free from these health hazards caused by the factories and quarries.”
A philosophy lecturer and poet, Zammit got the European Commission to declare that the plant emitting dust and noise to the detriment of Lija residents demanded a pollution abatement plan by Malta, which “did not manage to deliver compliance”.
Still, the Commission did not take any infringement procedures against Malta, betraying its utter lack of teeth on the issues that matter.
“The European Commission found the impurity levels of air in this area to be much higher than the limits imposed by European law,” said the Maltese Green MP in the Italian Parliament, Arnold Cassola. “After a forty-year long string of excuses to avoid taking action on this issue, the government is now claiming to be revising its legislation, with the clear intention of impeding the commission from initiating proceedings against Malta. It is also unacceptable that the commission is washing its hands on this issue, when there is already a 2005 ruling of the EU ombudsman over a similar case in Germany.”
AD deputy chairman Mario Mallia said: “Over the last 40 years, different governments have been submissive to the commercial interests at stake in this breach of the law. The result is a high incidence of asthma among Lija children and adults.”
Ralph Cassar, the party’s spokesman for energy and the environment, said the lack of investment in pollution prevention increased the risks of heart attacks, bronchitis and chronic pulmonary disease.
Although AD seems to be suggesting that investment in adequate air-purifying equipment might be the solution to the problem, Lija residents attending the press conference yesterday suggested more radical measures, particularly the shutdown of the factory in Lija and perhaps relocation of all its operations.
Contacted by MaltaToday, Blokrete Director Dr Joseph Fenech declined to comment.