A garnishee order for €500,000 has been imposed on the operator of a scrapyard in Marsa that sustained a major fire last month.
The request for the garnishee order was filed against operator JAC Steel Limited by Indis Malta Limited, the government agency that manages industrial parks all over the island.
Garnishee orders are issued by courts to redirect assets to creditors.
Indis Malta is seeking to recoup rent arrears, compensation for damage to the industrial area caused by the fire, and the cost of removing all material from the site, including tonnes of burnt scrap.
The government agency also wants the garnishee order to cover fines it is facing as a result of enforcement orders issued against JAC Steel by the Environment and Resources Authority.
The garnishee application, signed by lawyer Elian Scicluna, was filed before the Rent Regulation Board, presided over by Magistrate Josette Demicoli, who upheld the request.
Massive blaze
Described by firefighters as the biggest industrial blaze in decades, the fire swept through part of the JAC Steel scrapyard and waste recycling plant on the outskirts of the Addolorata cemetery early on September 16. It needed several firefighting units and more than two million tonnes of water to control it.
Waste was not being properly treated and treatment was being carried out in the wrong parts of the facility
The director of the Civil Protection Department, Emmanuel Psaila, later described the fire as “almost impossible to control” amid the dangerous fumes swirling around the firefighters.
He said the root cause of the fire was somewhere deep within the mountain of metal and other waste, with firefighters having to move large chunks of burning metal to get to it.
Yard had a long list of known environmental infringements
Times of Malta reported last month that the scrapyard had received several ‘stop and compliance’ notices over a long list of environmental infringements, which could point to the cause of the blaze.
The compliance orders were issued for late cleaning of oil spills and incorrect storage of heaps of flammable materials that at times even stretched beyond the confines of the site, according to documents seen by Times of Malta.
Waste was not being properly treated and treatment was being carried out in the wrong parts of the facility.
End-of-life vehicles, sent to the yard to be scrapped, were found not to have been treated in line with the approved methodology. The same applied to electronic waste.
A large shredder was being used without a permit and a section of the yard meant to be used as a quarantine area for dangerous substances was being used for another purpose.
The ERA had also warned that the scrapyard was ignoring the 49-ton maximum limit of hazardous waste it was allowed to store.
Sources said an official at the authority had even informally flagged the site as a public hazard to the government in 2017.
The ERA has not commented on why the site could go on operating despite the many infringements.