Raphael Vassallo
“Like water from a tap” is a current expression in several European languages, used to signify “plentiful and cheap”.
But according to hydrologist Marco Cremona, Malta cannot rely on plentiful and cheap water to even meet its current requirements - still less those of the future.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to talk about meeting renewable targets by 2020, unless we first implement a national policy on water use.
“The situation today is that approximately 55% of potable water - i.e, water of a high enough quality for drinking purposes - is produced by reverse osmosis (RO) plants, which in turn currently use up 5% of Malta’s total electricity production.” Cremona explains.
“The remaining 45% is accounted for by water extracted from Malta’s natural aquifer, which however needs to be mixed with fresh water on account of its high salinity.”
There are two main causes for groundwater contamination: one, the fact that the aquifer is at or below sea level, which entails a certain amount of sodium chloride (salt) that seeps in from the sea whenever water is extracted through boreholes.
The second involves toxins and nitrates which seep into the aquifer through contamination by artificial pesticides, manure, and possibly leakages from the sewage system.
“The Water Services Corporation is the only local entity licensed to extract groundwater; but as unregulated groundwater extraction increases, so too does the salinity of the aquifer, which in turn means that more RO water will be needed to blend it.”
The situation is ironically aggravated by EU accession in 2004 - or more specifically, the fact that we now have more stringent minimum quality standards for drinking water.
“Twenty years ago, groundwater would have been classified as potable according to these criteria,” Cremona points out. “Today, however, unchecked extraction has increased salinity to such a point that, if untreated, Maltese groundwater is not only unfit for human consumption, but is even too salty for use in agriculture.”
For this reason, our dependence on reverse osmosis plants for fresh water is set to increase exponentially with the continued proliferation of unlicensed boreholes. RO already accounts for roughly 5% of Malta’s total energy production (of which 99.98% is produced using fossil fuels such as oil or coal). A further 1 to 2% of Malta’s energy is also used in water distribution.
Marco Cremona estimates the rate of energy consumed by RO plants may increase from 5% to 15% over the next decade.
“In absolute terms, that represents an increase of 10% of the country’s energy production, just to be able to produce potable water,” he explains. “This is in turn offsets any benefits from achieving government’s targets of 10% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020....”
Unless Malta addresses the problem of illegal groundwater extraction, we will eventually become 100% reliant on reverse osmosis for all our water production - at an exorbitant cost. This cost will most likely be passed on to the consumer in the form of increased rates for water and electricity.
The solution? Marco Cremona advocates placing more emphasis on groundwater protection.
“This can be done in a number of ways: rainwater harvesting and storm-water collection would not just create reservoirs of clean, usable water: it would also alleviate flooding problems.”
Another possibility is sewage affluent treatment, resulting in second-class water which, though unfit for human consumption, is nonetheless good enough for agricultural and other purposes.
However, despite clear warning signs that fresh water will become Malta’s biggest headache in the future, Marco Cremona expresses concern at Malta’s apparent unwillingness to take the issue seriously.
“Malta still has no national water use policy,” he observes. “Not only that, but we haven’t even starting discussing the issue seriously yet...”
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