Reference is made to the article published in MaltaToday, entitled “Golden Bay is Malta’s third most polluted beach” and continued on page 6 entitled “Gozitan beaches are cleanest” published in Malta Today of Wednesday August 8, 2007.
The Department of Public Health would like to clarify the inaccuracies and misinformation given to the public in said articles, which may have great repercussions on the tourism industry during this time of year.
First of all this Department would like to inform your correspondent that the Environmental Health Unit is the unit within the Health Inspectorate Services of the Department of Public Health entrusted with the co-ordination of the bathing water monitoring programme in collaboration with the Environment Protection Directorate within the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Thus all reports published by the Environmental Health Unit are issued on behalf of the Department of Public Health. No different reports are issued separately by the Environmental Health Unit and the Department of Public Health.
It would be greatly appreciated if the Department of Public Health is provided with a copy of the stated analysis report quoted as being made by Prof. Victor Axiaq, in order that the department would then be able to verify the methods of analysis used in making this report.
From what it has been stated, it seems that the analysis was carried out by using information published on the Environmental Health Unit webpage, referring to the weekly classification reports. It has to be pointed out that these weekly classification reports depicts the situation of all sites monitored by the Department of Public Health as part of its official bathing water monitoring programme, based on the series of samples collected from all individual sites from the first week of monitoring to the related week.
Each single report supersedes the previous as the classification is worked out on the data analysis of all the sample results up to that week. Thus one cannot carry out any scientific data analysis using these reports. Once again we would like to clarify that these reports give the status of classification at the point in time based on all the samples collected up to that week. It would have been more appropriate if at least the data analysis carried out by Profs. Axiaq as referred to in your newspaper was based on the smiley reports again published on the Environmental Health Unit webpage as this report classifies each site within a range for faecal coliforms counts isolated by using approved methods of analysis by the Public Health Laboratory who carryout all the microbiological analysis on all bathing water samples collected by the health officials during the bathing programme.
At this stage trying to figure out how the beaches classification published have been worked out, it should have never been stated that a number of beaches are polluted as when making use of published reports by the Environmental Health Unit, none of the sites failed with the required standards and thus one cannot understand how one could come to a conclusion that these beaches are polluted. It has also been stated in your report that the reports used do not show any levels or counts of bacteria but classification of quality of the waters at each locality for each week, thus again trying to come up to some conclusions by making use of these reports to classify sites is not the correct way of doing so.
With reference to the previous report published on your Sunday issue again with reference to an interview with Profs. Axiaq, the Department of Public Health would like to inform you that all samples collected by the Health Department as part of the monitoring programme for microbiological parameters have never been tested by the method referred to in your article i.e. “One of the tests involves shaking seawater in a test-tube and if the water produces lasting foam, it is an indication of bacterial pollution”. Prof. Axiaq should be well aware that this type of testing is no longer acceptable as all microbiological analysis have to be carried out according to specified methods which have to comply with international standards such as ISO or any other approved standards. To our knowledge the test-tube method referred to is not covered by any of such standards.
Just to make it clear to all concerned and to assure the public, the Department of Public Health monitors 87 official bathing sites in Malta, Gozo and Comino every week (far more than the frequency of monitoring required by both the Barcelona Convention for the Mediterranean Seas and by the EU Directive for Bathing Water Quality), and all samples are first collected following specific international criteria for the collection of seawater samples for microbiological analysis and all test are carried out at the Public Health Laboratory, Microbiological Section following internationally approved methods for analysis. Seawater samples are tested for 3 different microbiological parameters and not only 2 and these include, Total coliforms, Escherichia coli (Faecal coliforms) and Intestinal enterococci (Faecal streptococci).
At present, up to week 11 from the start of this years’ official bathing season, all 87 sites have classified with all the required microbiological parameters as required by both the Barcelona Convention Criteria for the Mediterranean Sea and to the EU Directive as follows:
(1) Barcelona Convention Criteria based on Faecal coliform counts. All 87 sites qualify to the required standard with 45% of the sites qualifying even to a better quality than that required under the same criteria.
(2) EU Directive Standards - Faecal coliforms: all sites qualify to the mandatory values for faecal coliforms with 93% of the site qualifying also to the guide values which is of a better quality; Total coliforms: All sites conform to both the mandatory and guide values for this parameter; Faecal streptococci: For this parameter only a guide value is given in the Directive and all sites have conformed to the required level.
So from the above, how can anyone conclude that a number of beaches in Malta are polluted? The Department of Public Health would like to place an open invitation to your journalists or to other journalists interested in this field to call whenever they wish, at the Environmental Health Unit so that they can verify all the available data for bathing water quality and to be given an overview of how the data analysis is being carried out in accordance with the required criteria for classification purposes.
Emanuel Abela
Director of Information
Mdina Cathedral whitewash
“Give a dog a name and it will live up to it” as someone once said. Jesus Christ called them ‘white-washed sepulchres’ around 1,985 years ago. Still going on with white-washing. Never gave it up.
Nothing to fear, though, as long as it is whitewash. It peels off in time. It’s when they start playing with bonfires that one gets worried. And remember, “By their deeds they will be recognised”. Or something like that.
Arthur Taliana
Marsaskala
Not partial to kangaroo meat
I have been a regular reader of Saviour Balzan’s opinion column (twice a week) for a number of months now.
But I’m sorry to say that due to some irrational statements lately, I feel I must part company unless you can remedy the problem by offering an unreserved apology to all those who have been ridiculed and hurt by your highly irreverent allegation(s) in the Wednesday issue of MaltaToday of 8 August, where you stated “those Maltese/Australians who decided to go for the easy life down under should be given first hand news before you islanders.”
Frankly, I do not know how you came to the conclusion that we had an easy life when we left our dear island years ago, because you must have been bare-bum sucking your thumb in those days or about to be anyway. For your information when we left, we made sure we left enough room to make life easier for those left behind as we struggled along to the unknown. Your outrageous statement together with that ‘kangaroo meat is the staple food of the Maltese’ helped convince me and others that your regular trips to the law courts must be due to your rash statements.
It is a pity that you were not selected to accompany the Prime Minister’s contingent for his Australian visit, otherwise you would have enjoyed what we Maltese have as our staple food.
Frank Sargent
Melbourne,
Australia
Prime Minister frisked
I am a Maltese migrant living in Victoria, Australia. I was quite pleased that the Maltese Prime Minister visited us, which shows that there is still a very strong link even though we are thousands of miles apart.
But I was disgusted when I read that he was frisked in Perth. I think a strong letter of protest should be sent to the Australian Prime Minister regarding this shameful event. I am certain that nothing of this sort would have happened if it was Bush or Blair. I just cannot imagine what would have been the ramifications if this disgusting and disrespectful act was done to anyone of them. The Maltese consuls should protest very strongly to the Australian Government.
Just a point in case: a few months ago the Greek Prime Minister was on a visit. One could not imagine the festivities and the media coverage that was on. Just imagine if he was frisked on his way back to Greece.
Anthony Schembri
Victoria,
Australia
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