The report prepared by the Malta Environment Planning Authority (MEPA) lists the thousands of tons of solid and liquid hazardous waste that the new extension of the Delimara Power Station is set to produce as government has chosen a plant that will work on Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) until it is converted to operate on natural gas at the additional cost of €27 million.
MEPA says that if the plant uses 1% Sulphur HFO it will produce 9,880 tons of hazardous solid waste every year and this has to be exported as no local landfill is equipped to take such waste. The volume of operational waste will be reduced if the plant is fired by 0.7% Sulphur HFO. But even in this case the plant will produce a giant cocktail of at least 14,000 tons of hazardous waste per year.
Government and Enemalta are not being sincere about the waste management costs involved in the operation of the new plant. Last summer they told environmental NGOs that the cost of exporting the solid hazardous waste will amount to €12 million. This has recently been reduced to €2.5 million without explaining how this new cost has been calculated. Transport costs alone will amount to at least half a million euro per year. Does this cost include the other thousands of tons of hazardous waste that have to be disposed of by exporting them or wherever possible treating them locally?
15 tons of hazardous solid waste made up of the spent catalyst will also have to be exported. Another 993 tons of liquid hazardous waste produced by the oil sludge will also be exported if it cannot be disposed of locally. It has been suggested that this waste can be burnt in the Marsa incinerator but it has not been checked yet whether the plant can take it and if yes what kind of pollutants it will emit. At present the incinerator does not have the necessary permit to burn such hazardous waste. Another eight tons of semi-solid hazardous waste consisting of the boiler was down sludge will also have to be deposited in a hazardous landfill.
MEPA concedes that a major impact will be caused by the 9,993 tons of effluent a year that will flow into the sea behind the plant at Hofra z-Zghira, which has already been destroyed by the effluent from the existing plant. We are now being asked to believe that those who have destroyed this natural environment in the area will mend their ways, start doing what they should have done in the last 20 years and bring back to life what they have killed already.
Another 11 tons of effluent made up of oxidants and disinfecting agents will also be disposed of into the sea. MEPA has ordered Enemalta not to use anti-fouling paint to mitigate the damage to the environment. This mitigation measure is simply cosmetic and not practical. Antifouling agents are biocides (including chlorine) which must be used in the cooling systems and in various other parts of the Power Station, whenever sea water may come in contact with machinery. The fact that MEPA has accepted this mitigation measure shows that there is no real commitment to protect the environment.
Nearly 900,000 litres of sanitary waste water will be discharged into the public sewers. The treatment of this effluent requires observation, as one slip could have very serious consequences.
MEPA is doing all it can to please government and allow this plant on heavy fuel oil to operate as an extension to the Delimara Power Station. MEPA is showing a cavalier attitude on the impact of the plant on the health of people living in the area: “Likely impacts are those associated with respiratory system. However, increase in PM10, NOX, SO2 due to the proposed extension is unlikely to have a health impact over the long-term, even though the proposal will contribute to approaching the air quality standard threshold.” This is too casual a statement, if emissions go up, the negative impact on public health will also go up.
Indeed, the weakest part of the MEPA report is the assessment of the impact on public health. There is just a passing reference to a study by Dr Calvagna in 2005 which infers higher incidence of lung cancer in the vicinity of the Marsa Power Station. But then MEPA simply concludes that the impact at Delimara will be minor. And as a blind act of faith, we are asked to simply take MEPA at its word.
MEPA performance on the Marsa incinerator and on Marsa power station leaves much to be desired. Its ‘guardianship’ of the pollution control permits to which these establishments are supposed to be operating has been lax, as it has been lax in the Falzon/Hexagon House case. After 10 years it has still to deliver on the ‘black dust’ plaguing the South.
Delimara will prove a tougher challenge, both to BWSC to leave us with a properly working system and to Enemalta to keep the system in good shape. MEPA must see that no one is allowed to cut corners or at least to cut corners without the public being fully and promptly informed. The recent, sudden revelation that Enemalta had switched off precipitators last March required a heavy barrage from all sides to be forced into the public domain. And that was for a one-shot (only dust) simple system; the Delimara prospect is more challenging as it has to clean up a giant cocktail of liquid and solid hazardous waste.
All in all the Environment Impact Statement prepared for MEPA on the Delimara Power Station extension is too apologetic accommodating and does not address properly what will MEPA do if the mitigation measures to control the pollution produced by the new plant do not work. Will MEPA close the plant so that then, in candlelight, we will read the fairy tale ending found in the MEPA report saying that, even if terrible things happen to the environment because of the new power station extension, in the end we will all live happily ever after: “In the event that long term monitoring of il-Hofra ż-Żghira indicates that increase in effluent is having a major impact on the ecology, a contingency plan to mitigate these impacts shall be submitted to MEPA’s satisfaction and all necessary changes to the plant shall be hitherto made.” MEPA has no ongoing contingency plan to protect il-Hofra z-Zghira and it has allowed it to be destroyed, so are we to expect a new contingency plan to resurrect Hofra z-Zghira, with the assassin turning out to be a miracle worker capable of raising the dead?
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