We should be grateful that the Water Services Corporation is investing to rectify the shortcomings in the sewage treatment systems but the reality is that we are actually dismayed that not enough was done in the past.
The current announcement that €66 million is to be spent on an upgrade to the system comes only after Malta was found to be breaching EU rules.
Sewage is measured by population equivalent (p.e.), representing waste-water produced by one person per day.
This is by no means an overnight development. Malta’s current wastewater infrastructure has been struggling to meet demand for some time.
Take iċ-Ċumnija, in Mellieħa, commissioned in 2009: it was initially designed to handle 44,000 p.e. of sewage, but was treating almost double that, 80,000 p.e. by 2020.
When it was designed, the population was hovering just above 400,000. There are now an estimated 560,000 people living in Malta.
In the meantime, Ta’ Barkat, in Xgħajra, commissioned in 2011, has been handling 500,000 p.e. of sewage.
The €66 million is meant to boost treatment capacity at these plants by 30%, increasing their combined capacity to 743,000 p.e.
Once again, it seems we are operating by crisis management.
Why did we have to get to this point before doing something about it? Why must we ignore the need to invest regularly and prudently to cope with present and future demand?
This issue was first flagged by the European Commission in 2015 – and, although the government insists that much had been done since then, including €60 million worth of European Union funds, clearly it was not enough.
The European Commission was forced to go to court in 2022.
We have done this with so many aspects of our infrastructure: roads were left to fall into disrepair over decades only to have multiple projects underway at the same time causing havoc for commuters; the power supply system was underfunded, resulting in embarrassing power cuts and, now, we were found by the European Court of Justice to be in breach of the EU’s Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive.
Basically, Malta should have been making sure that the sewage processed by the two plants was “subject to secondary treatment or equivalent treatment before discharge”.
As a result, partially treated sewage was ending up in “sensitive areas” – although the authorities are still insisting that this had nothing to do with major swimming areas being closed off for weeks on end!
Now the plan is apparently to separate farm waste from urban wastewater, which is supposed to ease the problem. There is no doubt that mixing the two was not a good idea even at the outset.
Of course, the issue is whether it really will solve the real problem: is the infrastructure for sewage, with or without farm waste, going to be able to cope with the population growth we are seeing now, as well as that forecast for the future?
How are we are supposed to praise the government for planning to spend €66 million when €60 million worth of EU funds were already supposed to have been dedicated to the problem?
This is what planning is all about. When calls are made for an economic vision, we are basically asking for someone to model all the growth and to understand the impact this would have on various aspects, whether we are talking about tourism, traffic, construction or sewage.