Trash as usual?

There is no longer an easy way to dump our trash. We are horribly late on the waste management scene. Due to years of actors wasting vast swathes of time, we are now being forced to make some of our most crucial decisions in a state of haste and unpreparedness, weighing selected lesser evils against our greater sins.

The Mnajdra landfill proposal, summarised in The Times on New Year's Eve, is about to put the integrity of the environment impact assessment (EIA) process to the test. The developers, SLR (UK) and AIS (Malta) environmental consultancies, in association with the government-owned WasteServ, stand accused of putting pressure on MEPA by rushing out with their side of the story before the whole picture is complete.

The developers have already publicly concluded that there is "no overriding impact" to suggest that the Qrendi quarry landfills should not go ahead. WasteServ, which has been plagued by delays over permits for recycling bins, has taken the ball from MEPA and is pushing ahead with its own public consultation exercise.

The draft non-technical summary of the EIA was turned loose on the public before fully aligning with MEPA's terms of reference based on a worst case scenario.

The construction of a contained landfill of any scale will be one of the most significant and impactful developments MEPA will ever have to evaluate.

"There will be no shortcuts," interjected former acting director of Environment Vince Gauci following MEPA's announcement last August that it would accept Minister Ninu Zammit's deadline for the opening of an interim landfill a few hundred metres from the prehistoric temples.

SLR is pressing for works on landfill preparation to begin by the end of this month on the first Qrendi quarry to have the initial phase ready by May 1, the day Malta joins the European Union.

The first question in people's minds has been over the controversial choice of site for the interim landfill in two quarries flanking the prehistoric temples on the Southern cliffs. An independent source says that justification for the need of the Qrendi quarry landfills lacks credibility.

"Its origin can be traced in SLR's comment (in the Ghallis environment impact statement) that it would take two to three years to prepare the first cell at Ghallis. This statement has not been substantiated by SLR, and much less queried by Wasteserv. Local quarry owners were not consulted."

Why can't we simply maintain our trash-as-usual habit at Maghtab while we dig Malta's biggest-ever hole for a contained landfill in Maghtab's backyard?

The point blank reply to this is that Maghtab must close down as immed-iately as humanly possible. According to the EIA, the existing landfill sites in Malta (Maghtab) and Gozo (Qortin) are not designed to modern standards and are both virtually complete in terms of available landfill capacity. The Qrendi landfill site will also be accepting commercial and industrial waste from a waste transfer station in Gozo.

On a practical scale the doubly chaotic nature of the island's biggest and most intensive quarrying operation ever to be seen, coupled with the ongoing activities of an uncontrolled landfill may well prove overwhelming even in the short-term, not least in terms of traffic impact on the Salina-St Andrews coast road.

The impact assessment statement narrows the choice down to the Qrendi site based on it being the only disused set of quarries outside the groundwater protection zone which are large enough to make installing an engineered landfill worthwhile.

We are told that the landfill design and construction of the site will be fully compliant with engineering standards specified by the EU Landfill Directive, ensuring that there is no significant residual risk of pollution. The Siggiewi Residents Association which gathered more than 10,000 signatures against the interim landfill being placed in their back yard are bound to want a say in the matter.

Impacts

The nearest residential property to the proposed landfill quarry is a private house 40 metres away from the site boundary. Over the three- to four-year period during which development and landfilling will be taking place the dust nuisance to this particular property is predicted to be significant and at times high.

Increased noise levels effecting nearby properties due to road traffic generated by the landfill would not, claims the EIA, be significant. UK guidelines lay down a level of 70 decibels for "temporary" operations. It is not expected that this will be exceeded except in the case of the closest property.

There will be some undesirable effects due to the road traffic generated by the landfills which could conflict with visitor traffic. During the extent of its relatively short lifespan the waste facility will see over 330 trucks a day. That is more than 660 trips on one of several approach routes to the landfill.

An increase in traffic on the surrounding roads is expected at around five per cent on each of the Siggiewi-Rabat routes. The greatest increase in traffic is forecast on the coastal road between Zurrieq and Ghar Lapsi at an additional 53 per cent of existing traffic flow.

It is predicted that odours, the cause of great distress to nearby residents in the early days of the Sant'Antnin composting plant, are likely to be of such a low intensity as to be undetectable due to mitigating measures.

The adverse impact on landscape during landfilling operations is expected to be "negligible" as most of the operations would be below ground level in the vacant quarries. Photo-graphs in the landscape section of the EIA show a significant to high impact when the site is viewed from the Ghar Lapsi car park.

As the quarries begin to fill up, operations would become visible from the Hagar Qim temples only 900 metres away. It is proposed to raise the height of an existing rubble wall to 1.8 metres to mitigate this visual impact.

The project is not likely to produce any significant impacts on the quality or productivity of agricultural products. A field-by-field survey presents a picture of shallow to moderately deep soil supporting mostly wheat grown as forage for animals. It is foreseen that production might be temporarily reduced during the lifetime of the landfill.

The location of the landfills within quarries would reduce the possibility of windblown litter while the use of litter screens should help to further prevent dispersal of lightweight litter in the surrounding area. Prompt covering of all material containing putrescible waste would help to keep rats away. Regular inspections and treatment by pest control specialists where necessary would be undertaken to deal with any persistent vermin.

I rather suspect that the current methods might increase the toxicity of the resulting leachate. If it weren't for the hunters, we might even have enjoyed the help of predatory falcons to keep down the rat population.

The EIA concludes that tourists passing the facility would experience nothing more than a fleeting minor adverse impact. When compared to the shock of Maghtab experienced on the Bugibba route this may well be so. The Qrendi landfill is expected to create an overall impact upon tourism which the consultants judge to be negligible.

Worryingly the EIA notes that the amount of non-inert waste we produce stands at around 250,000 tonnes per annum. "While there are proposals for increased recycling, the necessary buildings and equipment are not in place. Even with the proposed facilities in place, it is calculated that there will continue to be a requirement for landfilling a minimum of 200,000 tonnes of waste per annum," states the EIA.

Pool of leachate

The E.I.A. points to a geological assessment, saying that planned measures will be adequate to address any risk of pollution of groundwater or beyond the boundaries of the containment landfill.

The chosen site is dry as a bone on a summer's day. Yet the landfill is designed to collect a one-metre deep pool of liquids known as leachate at the bottom of the pit. This cocktail of fluid waste could poison the environment if allowed to escape into the sea or ground water (as it does freely at Maghtab). A properly engineered landfill would have an impermeable membrane to prevent leachate from entering the ground and pump it to the surface for treatment then return it to the landfill.

An environmental compound is to house the leachate treatment plant and burn off any landfill gas out of sight by means of an enclosed flare. The landfill will be capped and sealed, and provided with a gas capture and treatment system. Aeration equipment is to be filtered to reduce odours. A limited amount of electricity generation from the landfill gas is possible for use on site.

The leachate treatment plant and flare would need to be retained for several decades after restoration but all other landfill infrastructure would be removed after closing of the site.

What will happen when it rains? The EIA assures that on wet days the storm water flow channels built into the restoration scheme will contain surface water run-off from the landfill within the confines of the site.

Temple damage risks

While health considerations take a front seat, the need to maintain the temple site in an amenable state for visitors is an urgent matter. A range of mitigating measures for dust and odour suppression are recommended in the EIA statement.

Issues of vibration and visual im-pact deserve serious consideration. The developers assure that the proposed landfill will not involve export of stone from the quarries, although some altering must take place to accommodate the enormous bin liner.

Blasting is a potential threat to the nearby monuments. The EIA says blasting will not be required at any stage of the landfill's development. Levels of vibration at residential and historical locations are to be kept below certain levels at all times.

A further aspect considered is the potential for damage to the temples from the formation of acid gases or other corrosive releases from the landfill. Based on meteorological data, the assessment predicts that impacts are likely to be "low to negligible". Thresholds have been set on emissions to the air in the hopes of preventing damage to cultural heritage features.

There will be a number of "minor visual intrusions" on the temple site from various aspects of the landfill. Views from the Misqa Tanks directly into the landfill site would be possible. A traditional rubble wall is proposed screening the tanks until the landfill is complete.

Carpet sweeper

The quarry areas lie within a Level 3 Area of Ecological Importance which serves as a buffer zone for even more valuable Level 2 AEI zones. The whole site lies within the recently declared Special Area of Conservation along the south coast of Malta. The loss of half a hectare of garigue, steppe and other disturbed ground is to be met with the restoration of 10 hectares of existing derelict quarry.

Once filled the whole landfill site is to be reconstructed as a garigue area in 2008. Detailed instructions for the planting and maintenance of this nature conservation area are given in the EIA. The newly created habitat is to be closely monitored to determine the most appropriate management regime for the coming season, and to record the gradual diversification of habitats. The opening of the contained landfill in place of Maghtab is timed to overlap with the closing of the Qrendi landfill.

At the planning stage things may still go ahead in a serious manner. At what point do we lose faith? Here our independent source comments that if the project gains MEPA's blessing, "the only winners from the process are SLR, who managed to get yet another lucrative EIA study to the tune of Lm40,000 direct order".

If MEPA, as the enforcer, is incapable of putting its best laid restraints and constraints into action then projects of this scale will always suffer public inacceptance and political jostling.

Wherever it is built, the next landfill should look and smell better than the present hellish mess.

And yet it is difficult to cap and grow a garden over the horrible suspicion that we could have found a better way. Ten or 20 years down the line we may yet discover a more sustainable blend of emerging technologies to deal with our destructive waste habit.