Information on dioxin emissions

In his comment on my "Natural Reaction" Ing. Christopher Ciantar of WasteServ (The Sunday Times, March 13) must be given credit for acknowledging a gap which cannot be ignored. Indeed, as Ing. Ciantar confirms, it is not possible to determine the full human intake of dioxin without more detailed analysis of dietary dioxin despite indications in the report that Maltese levels are higher than in Italy.

The consultants go on to conclude that in this case inhalation of dioxin emissions may become a significant route of entry to the human body. This is directly opposed to what was implied at the press conference.

I would like to point out that contrary to what Ing. Ciantar has claimed, I made no reference anywhere in the article to EU limits for aerial concentrations of dioxins. On the other hand WasteServ still seems to be avoiding drawing attention to details of the section on dioxins. This has not been included in the soft copy distributed by WasteServ after the article appeared.

Failure to release information on emissions is a clear breach of the Aarhus Convention on public access to environmental information. The Scott Wilson report on emissions was in itself complete over a year ago and should have been made available when requested.

At the press conference held to announce the overdue release of the report I was told that I would have to pay Lm150 for the full document. Only the executive summary was made available on the Website. I persisted and made an appointment to view the full report at WasteServ's offices.

With regard to nickel and EU drinking water standards, I have not "implied" anything untoward. Anyone can read the following sentence from the Scott Wilson summary posted on the MRAE and MEPA Websites:

"Lead, nickel, copper, cadmium and arsenic were identified in concentrations exceeding local background in two of the boreholes both located close to the landfill (although only nickel exceeded EU Drinking Water Quality Standards)."

WasteServ also takes offence where I wrote that arsenic was found in a borehole and argues it was found in a well, as if a well were not a hole bored into the ground. Rather than confusing samples taken inside with samples taken outside I made it distinctly clear that the sample in question was from a leachate monitoring site inside the Maghtab dump.

For the record I commend every effort to repair the damage of the uncontrolled landfills while endeavouring to monitor public access to all the information as is our full right now that we are European.