ERA renewed Marsa scrapyard permit despite its history of serious breaches

Updated 8.28am with ERA comments

The environment watchdog found serious breaches at the Marsa scrapyard four months after it was engulfed in a massive fire in 2021, but still renewed its environment permit a year later.

The Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) renewed JAC Steel Limited’s environmental permit in 2023, even though its inspectors discovered the operator was engaging in illegal activity on site in 2022.

In a statement provided on Tuesday morning, ERA insisted it only proceeded to issue a renewed permit for the scrapyard after it achieved "a level of compliance that is legally acceptable." 

The site had caught fire in the dead of night in September 2021, and court documents seen by Times of Malta show that, following the incident, the ERA was on site every day, pushing the operator to clean up and comply with the law after it had already flagged breaches and environmental hazards for eight years.

In 2021 alone, the ERA had carried out 135 inspections at the scrapyard, during which the operator, Conrad Baldacchino, addressed the issues, and the regulator stopped fining him by Christmas that year. However, only a month later, it was discovered he was again engaging in illegal activity on site.

During inspections in January 2022, “it was observed that the operator was occasionally incinerating waste motors in empty oil drums”.

The ERA carried out onsite inspections at least once a month that year and found waste was being stored outside permitted boundaries and not in designated areas as required by law, and that there were mixed waste types stored together.

A year later, however, the ERA still renewed the scrapyard’s environmental permit.

That four-year permit (EP 0025/22) provides specific guidance on the storing of waste in designated areas, with specific provisions for the storing of batteries, oils, EVs and other such dangerous waste.

It also bound the operator to implement various “fire safety measures” by a predetermined date. The measures and deadline are not stated in the public permit document, and it remains unclear whether these measures were implemented.

ERA: We only renewed permit after compliance was reached

The authority told Times of Malta that, "Following a period of close monitoring by ERA, a satisfactory level of compliance was reached, which facilitated the renewal of the environmental permit".

It noted that it had taken "several enforcement actions, including administrative fines and a stop and compliance order".

ERA also said that it had "proactively requested that the operator engage an independent fire engineer" despite fire contingency planning not being a part of its remit. 

Massive fires

The scrapyard, situated on Triq Giuseppe Garibaldi, was engulfed by a big fire in September 2021 and, again, last Friday, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the sky.

The ERA had found JAC Steel facility was in repeated breach of its environmental permits for nearly a decade, spanning from 2013 up to 2022, facing multiple stop notices and accruing fines that exceeded €50,000.

In a case that INDIS (the entity that administers industrial parks) had filed against the operator after the first large fire of 2021, the ERA provided details of the scrapyard’s consistent failure to comply with basic regulatory standards, often continuing to operate illegally without a valid permit and processing hazardous materials outside of its authorised limits.

The violations included serious environmental contamination, such as allowing waste to overspill into an adjacent valley, the mixing of hazardous waste, the spillage of waste oils across the facility and major infrastructure defects like damaged flooring that posed a risk of seepage into the ground.

Furthermore, the company used unpermitted equipment, including a large-scale shredder, stored hazardous waste improperly or in excessive quantities and was twice found incinerating waste on site.

The enforcement history shows that the operator’s permit was sometimes temporarily renewed for only a few months to force compliance, but the problems were continuously observed to deteriorate again soon after.

It remains unclear, however, whether the first, or even last Friday’s, fires were caused by these illegalities.

Also, Times of Malta only saw documentation for inspections up to 2022. It could not access documentation pertaining to checks and inspections after 2022. Therefore, it is not clear whether the site was still operating in breach of the law last week when the second fire occurred.

However, some of the breaches found in the past were serious fire hazards.

End-of-life vehicles (ELVs) are classified as hazardous waste not because of the metal body but because of the potent mix of toxins and fluids they contain. For this reason,

the vehicles must undergo a mandatory “depollution” process at a licensed facility before they can be scrapped or shredded.

If these hazardous components are not safely removed, they pose a severe risk of environmental contamination. The cars also contain highly flammable materials like fuel, which present a risk of fire or explosion.

Documents from the case relating to the 2021 fire show that, in the years prior to that fire, inspectors found water heaters, tyres and ELVs mixed together, as well as a pile of printers and photocopiers mixed with car tyres and vehicles for scrap, among other things.

On one occasion in August 2014, inspectors found a worker carrying out hot works near flammable materials.

During a board hearing pertaining to the 2021 fire, an ERA official testified that some cars were being shoved into the shredder with all the oils and toxic fluids still inside them.

Just two months before the large fire of 2021, another, small fire had broken out among some air conditioning units at the lower level of the facility.

The official insisted that the ERA’s interest was to “push him [the operator] towards compliance” in a way that safeguards the best environmental interest.

She reiterated they were working with him and trying to push him to apply for the necessary permits. She admitted the operator sometimes agreed and complied but at other times carried on with the illegalities.

Questions were sent to the ERA and the operator, Conrad Baldacchino, through his lawyer Franco Debono. Baldacchino would not comment.

In a case against INDIS, however, Baldacchino argued the first fire occurred through no fault of his own and due to reasons beyond his control. He also said there were discussions with INDIS to provide another piece of land for his business, to be substituted with the current site.

Last Friday’s fire pushed the Civil Protection Department to its limits. It took 160 firefighters 24 hours and almost five million litres of water to quell the flames.

The cost of that operation is yet to emerge, but the bill for putting out the first large fire in 2021 totalled €19,252. The bill was footed by the operator.

'On-site inspections'

ERA said it "drew the operator’s attention to any identified non-compliances and often followed up by holding on-site inspections with company representatives to address the most significant issues identified".

"These efforts were also carried out in the context of the operator’s intention to progress with the IPPC application for the site, pending confirmation of its final location."

ERA noted that while certain matters, including fire contingency planning, did not fall within its remit, it adopted a "proactive approach", requesting the scrapyard operator to engage an independent fire engineer and consult with relevant authorities.