Dramatic rise in salinity means Malta will have to stop extracting groundwater
James Debono Groundwater extraction by the Water Services Corporation (WSC) has declined by 36% over the past decade because of a dramatic increase in salinity, creeping into the Maltese underground water table.
Scientific data seen by this newspaper shows that if the trend continues, the WSC – which is the only body that can legally extract underground water – will have to stop its activity by 2025.
In 1997, the WSC extracted 18 million cubic metres of groundwater. In 2008, it only extracted 11.6 million cubic metres.
A statistical extrapolation, based on present trends, shows that by 2025 the WSC would have to stop extraction because the water would be contaminated by sea water creeping into the water table.
The sea water enters the water table when too much underground water is extracted. Much of this is worsened by illegal private boreholes from which people extract groundwater without even paying for it.
If and when the WSC stops extracting the groundwater, Malta would have to rely exclusively on Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants.
RO plants are expensive because they consume huge amounts of electricity to turn sea water into potable water.
But despite the sharp decrease in extraction over the past decade a spokesperson for the WSC insisted that the corporation did not envisage “any further decreases in groundwater extraction in the foreseeable future.”
But the spokesperson blamed the sharp decrease in extraction in the past decade on the “dramatic increase in the salinity of groundwater.”
But the situation is not getting any better, because according to the spokesperson the salinity of groundwater is not improving. This means that more RO water will be needed to blend with groundwater due to local and EU regulations.
How much does it cost? Desalinating a cubic metre of seawater costs the government at least four times as much as extracting the same amount from the water table.
RO comes at a high capital cost due to expensive high-pressure seawater pumps, energy recovery devices, and membranes.
And yet, despite the decrease in extraction by the WSC, private extraction has continued unabated. Resources minister George Pullicino himself admitted that Malta was extracting 34 million cubic metres from its water table, when it should be extracting 23 million cubic metres a year.
Private boreholes are extracting 19.5 million cubic metres – nearly twice the amount extracted by the WSC – and only 8,643 are registered with the government.
WSC extraction of groundwater continues to increase in Gozo, which has better sources but also a polishing plant that uses RO to bring the water up to acceptable levels.
But as with any RO process, the polishing plant produces brine, which in turn requires even more groundwater from Gozo’s aquifers, which are also under stress due to over-extraction.
The EU’s Water Framework Directive requires member states to bring their water resources to ‘good quality’ by 2015.
In Malta’s case, this will mean a drastic reduction in groundwater extraction, but it is not clear how the government intends to implement this reduction and which sectors – agriculture, hotels, beverage companies, bowser water suppliers, swimming pools – will be affected.
Malta also does not yet have a national water policy. The draft policy was issued for consultation in 2004, but the resources authority has not presented a final draft to date.
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