PN launches new webpage tracking sea contamination

The Nationalist Party has launched a new webpage tracking incidents of sea contamination.

The PN’s ‘Factcheck: Sea Water Quality’ page features weekly water quality ratings for popular bathing spots, including Balluta Bay, St George’s Bay, Ġnejna Bay and Exiles Bay, based on publicly available government data.

It also features a round-up of results from lab tests carried out in bathing areas last year, which on one day in August recorded E.coli readings 85 times higher than the recommended limit.

The Opposition presents the results highlighted on the page as proof of a “disastrous summer” last year, with this year’s season opening with “poor water classifications and a new sewage warning”.

The webpage comes as attention turns to the water quality of Malta’s beaches.

Parts of the sea off Birżebbuġa were closed to bathers earlier this week following a sewage outflow traced to nearby private residences. And days later, a popular swimming spot in Ta' Xbiex was temporarily closed due to an overflow of foul water.

Referencing data published by the Environmental Health Directorate, the PN noted that nine bathing sites were temporarily closed for the season last year due to contamination issues, with recent data showing “it has started again”.

Qawra last year registered E.coli readings 85 times the recommended limit on an August day last year. Screenshot: PN.

Describing last year as having seen an “escalation” of water quality issues throughout the bathing season, the party said use of the term “poor” by health authorities translated to “advice not to bathe ... temporary closure reports and explicit official references to sewage, foul water and sewer overflow”.

The site contains E.coli and intestinal enterococci readings – the latter a bacterium used as an indicator of faecal contamination – for various beaches across the country.

It also contains links to government press releases detailing what the PN describes as Environment Minister Miriam Dalli’s “failed promise” to deliver on drainage system repair works.

The party highlighted that while Dalli said repair works had been completed on May 12 of this year, less than a month later, Birżebbuġa was closed to bathers.

The Opposition noted that in October 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Malta had allowed sewage to be discharged into the sea without undergoing secondary treatment.

Urging internet users to share the webpage, the PN noted that it had raised the issue at an EU level on three occasions since July last year.

'Families deserve clean beaches'

A party spokesperson said the PN would “keep doing its constitutional duty: holding Government to account”.

“Families deserve clean beaches ... We are putting facts back into politics: exposing spin, holding government to account, and making the case for a cleaner, fairer country”, the spokesperson said.

“What people saw during the electoral campaign will continue inside and outside Parliament: a positive, fact-based drive for what is best for Malta. This initiative of fact-checking is about cutting through the gap between PL spin and people’s lived reality.”

The party noted that it has created a similar PN webpage presenting graphics of data on perceptions of corruption collected by Eurobarometer and other surveys.

The Environmental Health Directorate operates a water quality-tracking website that monitors 87 sites nationwide.