Pullicino Orlando insists rock cutting a must

In saying that no excavations would be necessary for the development of temporary landfills in disused quarries near Mnajdra, SLR Consulting Limited were not saying the truth, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando charged yesterday.

He said SLR had contradicted what the Minister of Human Resources had said in public; that it was impossible to use the three-sided quarries in their present form.

Speaking to The Times, Dr Pullicino Orlando said the authorities had previously stopped rock cutting going on at the quarries because the vibrations were endangering the temples. But rock would need to be cut if the quarries were to be made into landfills.

However, he agreed with SLR that it was the role of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to determine whether the proposed interim landfill facilities should be permitted and he congratulated the authority on insisting on a full environment impact assessment.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said he had always argued that the three major issues that should have been tackled in the EIA were the archaeological, socio-economic and hydrogeological impacts.

SLR themselves had confirmed that the assessment of the socio-economic impact had not yet been concluded. Mepa had informed him that neither had the EIA included a hydrogeological impact assessment so, as far as he was concerned, the EIA was only one-third ready.

Mepa had not accepted the report because it was incomplete, he said, adding that senior officials had rejected his request to see it for this reason.

He said one did not prepare a report and then find experts to approve it, as SLR themselves had said they were doing with regard to the socio-economic study. It was the experts themselves who should draw up reports but in this case they had only been appointed a week ago.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said SLR was the first entity to have suggested that Malta needed an interim landfill facility, without consulting anyone in the rock cutting industry. Had it done so, it would have found that the first cell of the proposed landfill at Ghallis ta' Gewwa could be completed within three to four months. This would have pre-empted the need for an interim landfill or landfills.

He pointed out that the major resistance to the project came from himself and other district MPs but SLR did not have the decency to meet the representatives of the people.

He claimed SLR were paid consultants involved in the running of certain sites in the UK which were being investigated by UK national authorities.