Matthew Vella The European Commission is concerned that implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the countries most affected by water scarcity has been delayed. Among these member states is Malta, whose scarcity problem is a permanent one.
“The fact that the year 2009 brought a certain degree of hydrological relief compared to the harsh situation experienced in the last few years by some of the southern European countries does not change this conclusion,” the EC said in its second follow-up report on the Water Framework Directive.
The EU’s Water Framework Directive requires member states to introduce water-pricing policies with incentives for efficient water use, but little progress has been made so far. The Commission is concerned by delays in implementing the WFD in the member states most affected by water scarcity, such as Malta and Cyprus.
“Water resources are still under increasing pressure from pollution, from over-exploitation and from climate change – and even in the light of significant uncertainties about the future hydrological regime in Europe, cleaning up our waters, strengthening biodiversity, moving towards improved water efficiency and maximising water availability must all be part of the answer to these challenges.”
By 2012 the Commission will publish a report on how member states have tackled water scarcity, and provide a blueprint to safeguard water resources.
The EC says the blueprint will move away from a crisis management approach towards prevention and preparedness, and ensure a sustainable balance between water demand and the supply of clean water.
The EC argues that the greater efforts on pricing and efficiency are needed to reverse the over-exploitation of Europe’s limited water resources.
The Maltese resources ministry only recently announced it would start metering – but not charging – the extraction of water from boreholes, which are used for agricultural, domestic and even industrial use, sometimes at a harrowing cost to the environment.
Free water Malta is extracting 34 million cubic metres from its water table, when it should be extracting 23 million cubic metres a year.
Most recently, the former chairman of the Water Services Corporation, Tancred Tabone, warned that “Malta will run out of water in about five years.” Hydrologist Marco Cremona has also warned of an impending water crisis in 15 years’ time while British geologist Gordon Knox has warned of a collapse of Maltese agriculture by 2025 due to creeping salinity in the aquifer.
A report issued by the Food Agriculture Organisation in 2007 also warned that that if ground water quality continues to deteriorate, at some point domestic water supplies will have to be sourced entirely from desalinated water produced from reverse osmosis plants leading to a doubling of household water bills.
The government also launched a registration scheme for boreholes, which revealed an additional 2,600 boreholes over the 5,400 registered in 1997.
And 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.
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