The promise to turn manure into ‘gold’ is still missing Midas’s touch as a project announced in 2007 to relocate cattle farms to Siġġiewi and turn farm waste into fertiliser has still not materialised – seven years after it was announced by former Resources Minister George Pullicino.
Despite four years of promoting the project it remains at a standstill.
The plan was to relocate 17 cattle farms in urban settlements and historical sites to an area known as Tal-Kaboċċi in Siġġiewi.
The estimated cost was Lm5 million (€11.6 million), to be covered by farm owners and government, hopefully with the help of EU funds.
Since 2007, an endless list of studies, lawyers and foreign and national consultants has been involved at a cost that cannot be quantified by the current administration.
Three different international consultants expressed concerns about risks involved with the treatment facilities chosen by the former administration due to the fact that the technology was untested. Further concerns were raised on the lack of a proper feasibility study, risk assessment and reference projects related to proposed processes.
Operating costs would exceed estimates, the consultants advised, while remaining unwilling to take on responsibility for the project. Times of Malta asked the Environment Ministry the total investment made in the Siġġiewi project since 2007, but the information was not available.
A manure treatment facility was to be developed to cater for the disposal, storage and treatment of manure from the same farms. The plant was to serve as a central depot for farm waste to be used to develop fertiliser and bio mass energy, supposedly turning manure into gold as described in 2010.
It was expected the farm would generate 1,700 Megawatt Hours (MWH) – in other words enough energy to supply 370 four-person households each year.
By then, the 17 cattle farms had already been reduced to 12, and the site identified had changed to another area in Siġġiewi known as Ta’ San Niklaw. The original site was deemed too close to Id-Dar tal-Providenza home for the disabled.
In 2010, media reports said the “project was in its initial phases” despite its announcement three years earlier.
An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was to be published by October. It was expected that permits would be issued by the following summer. But the new site chosen had actually been leased to Buxom Chicken director Edward Borg until the end of 2015.
Mr Borg had said he had plans for an agritourism project on site that had been encouraged by other ministers within the same cabinet. The dispute over the 110 tumoli of land was eventually settled in court in 2011.
Asked whether it was the intention of the current administration to proceed with this project, a spokesman said: “We are considering all options.”
But the administration has gone back to the drawing board, setting up a technical working group under the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, bringing together officials from the Agriculture Directorate, Water Services Corporation and Mepa.
The lack of facilities for farm waste treatment means that the waste either gets dumped into the sewerage network or on to agricultural fields to boost yields.
The dumping of sewage on agricultural fields is currently being investigated by the Ombudsman following disclosure of the practice by Times of Malta.