James Debono
Resources Minister George Pullicino’s clampdown on borehole users who fail to register their activity only comes in the wake of a letter of formal notice sent by the European Commission, over Malta’s failure to monitor the state of its groundwater sources, this newspaper can reveal.
Malta is in breach of a directive establishing a common European framework on the management of water sources.
The infringement concerns Malta’s failure to monitor the chemical and quantitative status of its groundwater resources.
Member states are obliged to submit reports of their monitoring programmes to the Commission, but Malta has so far failed to send any reports.
From information submitted in parliament last week, it emerges that Malta replied to a letter of formal notice on 3 October – just a few days before George Pullicino announced two legal notices aimed at giving the government a full picture on the levels of groundwater extraction.
But Pullicino made no reference to the infringement notice in his press conference announcing the borehole registration scheme on 7 October.
The government has now told the Commission it is committing itself to submit the report on water extraction by June 2009.
Borehole users are now facing draconian fines if they do not register their, so far illegal, activity.
And yet they will not be paying a cent for draining the country’s endangered water table: the indiscriminate extraction of water from Malta’s underground source can contribute to the seepage of sea water into the source, eventually making the water undrinkable.
Pullicino has admitted that illegal extraction has reached unsustainable proportions but said the government has to look at the “full picture” before introducing meters to charge registered borehole users.
He also said Malta is extracting 34 million cubic metres from its water table, when it should be extracting 23 million cubic metres a year.
Now the minister has taken a leaf out of Alfred Sant’s short-lived government, by enforcing the registration of illegal boreholes. Anyone who fails to do so is liable to a maximum fine of €18,600 – the same fines imposed by the Sant administration in 1997. Registration of boreholes will cost €230.
Pullicino also declared a moratorium on the drilling of new boreholes for the next year.
But while anyone who drills a new borehole is subject to a maximum €68,600 fine, it will be business as usual for those who register their illegal boreholes.
And it will also be business as usual for the 6,000 users who registered their boreholes back in 1997, who are not required to register again.
Still, Pullicino has made it clear that registration does not entail the legalisation of boreholes which will be registered in the next month. “One should not interpret the notification of boreholes as an automatic right to extract water… The aim of this exercise is not that of issuing permits for borehole users but to give us a full picture.”
Pullicino also promised that by the beginning of next year, the government will be issuing a public consultation document aimed at ensuring the sustainability of Malta’s underground water resources.
He did not exclude that charges on extraction from boreholes will be introduced at that stage.
According to Pullicino, 16 million cubic metres of underground water is used by farmers, while 3 million cubic metres are used for tourist, industrial and domestic purposes.

Water problems
The government’s half-hearted clampdown comes in the wake of a proposed increase in water tariffs, which critics suspect will also increase the demand for illegally extracted water from bowsers.
EU law calls on member states to recover the full costs of water production by 2010 to encourage citizens to avoid wasting water.
If Malta’s source of cheap groundwater is depleted, the island will be forced to rely exclusively on the more expensive process of converting sea water by Reverse Osmosis (RO), and the government will have no choice but to increase the price of water again because of the enormous amount of electricity that is required for the RO plant.
Already 43% of water produced by the Water Services Corporation is extracted directly from the water table, and it costs just 25% of the cost to produce water by RO plants.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt

PRINT THIS ARTICLE