Sant calls for inquiry into choice of landfills

Opposition leader Alfred Sant has called for a "serious inquiry" into how Government decided on the new landfill at Ghallis and the temporary landfills near Mnajdra.

Dr Sant told a social activity in Siggiewi that recent developments had shown how the people would have to pay for environmental policies which were not appropriate for Malta's circumstances. Siggiewi would shoulder part of that price since refuse trucks for the landfills near Mnajdra would drive through that locality.

Dr Sant said the 1996 Labour government had embarked on the road to close the Maghtab landfill according to local circumstances. It had started work so that building waste would be deposited in quarries for between five and seven years until land reclamation was made off the Maltese Islands.

The Labour government had also started working on domestic waste separation.

But the 1998 Nationalist government had stopped all this. Instead, it accepted everything that the European Union told it to do, including closing Maghtab by mid-2004, without preparing any alternatives.

Had adequate preparation been made, there would not have been the need for the temporary landfills near Mnajdra.

All this further showed how right the Labour Party had been to tell the people that it would have to be the Maltese, and no one else, who had to solve Malta's problems.

Opposition infrastructural services spokesman Joe Mizzi said the temporary landfills near Mnajdra would not meet EU directives on engineered landfills.

This had been confirmed by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, which had described the project as one to restore the quarriers rather than the building of engineered landfills.

The sites near Mnajdra could not be developed into engineered landfills because of their topograpy, which would mean that efforts to contain the seepage of toxic liquids would fail.