Government will publish its long overdue water policy to safeguard Malta’s imperilled groundwater resources, but still needs “to see full picture” before deciding on charging borehole use.
James Debono The government will be launching a water policy for public consultation, six years after its first one in 2004 on implementing the EU’s Water Framework Directive.
The policy is aimed at preserving Malta’s threatened groundwater sources, which Rural Affairs and Resources Minister George Pullicino has acknowledged is being over-extracted by 11 million cubic metres every year, when it should only be yielding 23 million cubic metres.
Permanent secretary Chris Ciantar also confirmed that the government will abandon plans to capture rainwater through a costly underground tunnel system, to instead control groundwater extraction and invest in further polishing of treated sewage.
The government also launched a registration scheme for boreholes, which revealed an additional 2,600 boreholes over the 5,400 registered in 1997. “Now that we know how many boreholes we have, we are in a position to draft the government’s plan to protect groundwater sources. The water policy will show how the government plans to decrease extraction to a sustainable amount,” Ciantar said.
However, more than a year since launching the registration scheme, the government still needs to see “the full picture” before committing itself on metering groundwater extraction and charging for its extraction – which is currently free.
“Before talking about quotas and prices we have to know clearly how much water is really being extracted from these boreholes. Only then will we have a clear picture on how much the scenarios being presented to us are correct or not,” Ciantar said.
But experts have warned that Malta could be already late in saving this precious resource, among them former Water Services Corporation chairman Tancred Tabone, who claims Malta will run out of water within five years. How does this tally with government’s estimates?
“This declaration does not tally with the information we have... while groundwater in some areas has really reached a critical point which requires immediate attention, in other areas it is not disturbed to such an extent.
“So far we only know how many boreholes we have in Malta. We do not know how much water is actually extracted. We will only know when metres calculating how much water is being extracted are introduced. Metres will not only help us control extraction, but they will have an educational role to encourage people to cut down on waste.”
However, this does not mean that all boreholes will have a metre attached to them. “There could be boreholes which have to be closed completely and there are boreholes which might not need a metre.”
Ciantar describes how farmers are understanding that excessive irrigation can have a negative impact on their crops. “We should arrive at a situation where farmers know exactly how much water is required to irrigate crops… The practice of flooding the whole farm by groundwater simply because it is free has to stop.”
But will farmers be charged for the groundwater they extract?
Ciantar does not give a definitive answer, pointing out that this falls outside his remit. But he reveals the ministry’s frame of mind on this issue: wasteful consumption over and above what is necessary to grow a particular crop will be penalised, using scientific studies to determine the amounts of water needed by a particular crop in a Mediterranean climate.
Paying for extraction
But it isn’t just farmers who extract groundwater. General Soft Drinks Ltd have recently acknowledged extracting 51,000 cubic metres of water annually for free from three boreholes. Many other commercial entities have not divulged how much they are extracting. Should these not pay for the groundwater they are talking out?
Ciantar hints that the government has accepted the principle that “the resource has to be given some form of value… How much this would amount to has to be established after the public consultation.”
He also makes it clear that “we cannot remain in a situation where the amount of water extracted from boreholes is not monitored.”
Moreover, bowsers carrying groundwater will be required to carry tracking equipment, in terms of new regulations being issued by the Malta Resources Authority, to identify how much water is being delivered.
Ciantar also says the potential to reuse treated sewage water, that is right now being pumped out at sea because it lacks a ‘polishing’ process and a distribution network, still exists. But he disagrees with those who lament that Malta is dumping the treated water at sea, claiming it is not good enough for irrigation without further polishing – a refining process to make it useable. “To reuse it as second-class water we have to invest in further treatment. There is an additional cost and we have to assess the cost-benefit involved.”
While the government is presently seeking EU funds for the polishing of this water, another problem is how this water will be distributed to farmers. One option is to have designated collection points for farmers’ bowsers. Ingeniously, wastage will be avoided by providing farmers with a prepaid card: “In this way a farmer who needs a gallon of water to grow watermelons will be able to extract this exact amount through his card.”
Another option is to use the natural groundwater network to transport treated water to the farms. “In this way the farmer will continue using the present borehole infrastructure while the aquifer itself is recharged by treated water.”
The storm water option Another option previously considered by the government to reduce the country’s dependence on desalination was to harvest rainwater that floods Malta’s roads before ultimately ending up in the sea.
The underground tunnel system, originally proposed for €400 million in EU co-financing, was earmarked as a new source of water for agricultural and drinking purposes, leading to less dependence on the production of drinking water from the reverse osmosis.
But Carmelo Mifsud Borg, who is responsible for the National Flood Relief project, a cost-benefit analysis showed the option was not economically feasible. The main problem with reusing storm water is that as soon it drains into the road, it becomes contaminated. “Once the water ends up in the road, nobody knows what it contains. It could get mixed with sewage, oils and other dangerous materials. To be reused it has to be re-polished.”
And to capture and store storm water, a costly infrastructural investment is required. “Economically, it does not make sense to let this water drain in the roads and then spend a lot of money to capture, store it and polish it to make it good for consumption and than to deliver it.”
According to estimates, desalinated water is even cheaper, because flood water harvesting would cost seven times as much. Instead the government will invest €60 million on flood relief initiatives in nine localities.
Now the government is seeking to embark on a pilot project in Gzira to store water in a reservoir, that would be recycled at source rather than allowed to drift in the roads. “Since the time of the Knights, households were required to store storm water in a cistern and this avoided the dispersal of water in the roads. Unfortunately, since the 1960s this law was not enforced,” Mifsud Borg said.
He welcomes the fact that MEPA is enforcing energy performance rules for new buildings: “What is important is that this water is reused. If these cisterns become full the water will simply end up in the road.”
Food and Agricultural Organisation, April 2007 If groundwater quality continues to deteriorate, at some point domestic water supplies will have to be sourced entirely from desalinated water produced from reverse osmosis plants.
If this cost is passed on to the consumer, this will lead to a doubling of household water bills… Where groundwater becomes unusable even for agricultural purposes, farmers will have to switch completely to desalinated groundwater. Based on the energy costs at the time, this would mean an increased per-hectare cost of €7,000 for crops irrigated by desalinated water.
Marco Cremona, hydrologist, August 2008 Calculated on a per-capita basis, Malta is the ninth thirstiest country in the world. We are extracting groundwater from our aquifers at a rate that is more than twice the sustainable rate (possibly more, but we do not know for certain, as the greater part of the extraction is illegal) – which means that this precious strategic resource will be rendered useless during our lifetime.
Gordon Knox, geologist, December 2009 Malta is heading for a crisis unless attitudes to water management and conservation change drastically. Natural water resources are over exploited and insufficient for the population of the islands, meaning that the shortfall is provided by expensive reverse osmosis desalinisation plants and virtual water. The unsustainable extraction of groundwater could lead to the collapse of Maltese agriculture by 2025.
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