The sky is not falling

Until a decision is taken to jigger up Mnajdra for good, Wasteserv's Chris Ciantar has promised us "to disseminate all necessary information for a better and more informed decision". Hmmm.

Since when do government-owned companies need to have full page articles written to be able to communicate their concerns to Mepa? The decision will be taken by Mepa not by the reading public. Has Wasteserv become a lobby group resorting to shame and blame tactics aimed at its colleagues at Mepa?

So far as information is concerned, Dr Ciantar was very miserly indeed. The basic message was that Maghtab will be closed by May 30 and that the crisis that will ensue will be all Mepa's fault. We were given no why and wherefore, basically no information. It was an ultimatum not "all necessary information". It is propaganda for a purpose.

The fact that Dr Ciantar has no fallback plan and is "relying on getting the permit for the interim landfill soon" is simply shocking. Wasteserv's decision to close Maghtab is simply a tactical decision to make Mepa issue the permit to destroy Mnajdra. It is simply disgusting.

Had it been a genuine situation, it would have been a disastrous admission that there is absolutely no strategy in our waste strategy.

Wasteserv is the buffer quango that must take all the flak and fallout from Minister Ninu Zammit's zany ideas. Dr Ciantar is the public whipping boy. Read Mr Zammit where I write Dr Ciantar.

There will be no interim landfill at Mnajdra. Nobody at Mepa wants to go down in history as the idiot who jiggered up the place. No amount of pressure will get reasonable people to commit such a crime. Even if they had been the most venal twits on the planet, there is not enough money in it to make it worth their while. The money is for the Polidano and Xuereb consortia, the only tenderers left in the running, and for the quarry owners, a Mr Vella and a Mr Albert Mizzi. Good luck to them.

It looks like Mepa is standing its ground and Wasteserv is stamping its feet. Just like an errant schoolboy that has not done his homework, Wasteserv is in a screaming fit to have its way at all costs.

Wasteserv appears to be in a hurry over the impossible remediation of Maghtab using EU funds. The window of opportunity to snatch EU funds is said to be closing. What we are not being told is that there can be no remediation of Maghtab. The monster can be penned; a wall can be built around it to take up surface water and treat it. For the rest it will continue to burn for decades. Its present core temperature is 400°C. What remediation? What full information? Why is the Wilson & Scott report, documenting the disaster of decades, still a secret?

The not-better-explained "various reasons" for closing down Maghtab include the reality of 260,000 tons of unseparated waste that will accumulate there each year henceforth and which will become an inferno in the summer heat. Having separated the treatment of building and construction waste from the main tender elements and granted it to the Polidano consortium, there is very little left to cover the mess at Maghtab. Next summer will be a return to volcano days. It is the strategy of morons; more homework not done, more stamping of feet.

The admission that, even if Mepa grants the interim landfill permit, there will be no interim landfill and no Maghtab available once it is closed on May 30 paints a cataclysmic picture. It should not be used to put a gun to Mepa's head but to justify a resignation en masse of everybody at Wasteserv. What in God's good name has everybody been doing since 2001 when the solid waste management strategy (SWMS) was formulated? Avoiding electoral flak?

As if to explain his checkmate to Mepa, Dr Ciantar claims that no alternatives have been brought forward. Since Francis Zammit Dimech shut down consultations with the issue of a tender for the integrated solid waste management of all our garbage, nobody has been asked to put in a squeak on the matter. Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party was invited and participated in the framing of the SWMS.

That was years ago. Since then a wall of silence has come down on the matter and we have been in the position of the general public learning of the latest disaster pulled out of Mr Zammit's hat.

There are many solutions. The problem is a technical problem and the difficulty should lie only in matching resources available to the array of possible solutions. The Greens would be very glad to sit down and discuss the matter and help Dr Ciantar and Mr Zammit with their homework.

We can and are willing to address the thorny political problems inevitably associated with implementing a waste strategy. There are two conditions.

1. Wasteserv will stop putting a gun to Mepa's head.

2. The strategy should be dealt with in a holistic manner.

We will not be associated with an absurd propaganda campaign perpetrated by a government-owned company to subvert the proper workings of the planning regulator. It is an abuse of public funds such as Mepa would not allow to any private developer. It is scandalous.

The whole problem must address not just Mnajdra, not just Maghtab but also abattoir and hospital waste incineration. We cannot continue with the Wasteserv dealing with the problem on our lap today only. What is to be done with sludge from waste water treatment? Why is it not mentioned? Because they are a crisis to be dealt with a few years down the road?

We are sick and tired of being falsely accused of not providing solutions. We have participated in the framing of the solid waste management strategy that lays down the rules for addressing all our problems for a considerable time into the future. It has been ignored. Regardless of the work done by all stakeholders, including all environmental NGOs and the Green Party, the government has spent three years doing next to nothing in order to continue with management by crisis and carefully engineered the-sky-is-falling campaigns while dodging the electoral liabilities involved in introducing any measure that could mildly inconvenience voters.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika.