Action to protect valley

The Save Wied Garnaw Action Group will be presenting a petition to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in the coming days.

It will be appealing to the authority to refuse an application for a waste sorting plant in the valley that lies between Santa Lucija, Gudja and Ghaxaq, and adjacent to Tal-Barrani road.

Under a scorching sun, the action group, accompanied by the mayors of villages surrounding Wied Garnaw and Labour MP Karl Chircop, announced yesterday it had collected around 4,000 signatures from residents who opposed the development of the inorganic waste separation plant.

The developer of the sorting plant who is seeking Mepa's approval is the same person who started a skip depot in the valley some years back, and who subsequently asked Mepa to sanction the illegal development, the Save Wied Garnaw Action Group spokesperson, Catherine Polidano said.

In 2000, Mepa had issued a stop notice on the skip depot and, in 2002, it issued an order for the restoration of the site. The developer ignored the orders and Mepa did not enforce them.

Only recently was the illegal skip depot cleared out following pressure from MPs of the locality and mayors of villages in the neighbourhood.

On June 21, the Mepa public relations office informed the Save Wied Garnaw Action Group that restoration of the former depot to its original state would start at the end of June.

Ms Polidano said the petition is also asking Mepa to take effective action to stop about 17 illegal developments that mushroomed in the valley in the past decades. One of the enforcement notices dates back to 1993.

Although the valley had been designated by Mepa as a green area and a protected area for its agricultural and ecological value, the authority has already sanctioned a number of illegal developments.

Residents said they supported waste separation but also believed such separation ought to take place in an industrial zone - where almost a quarter of the space is vacant - and not in a valley that has been scheduled for its ecological value.

Ms Polidano said a Mepa officer had recommended a refusal for the development application for the waste sorting plant. The case is pending at Mepa's Development Control Commission.

She said residents were not just calling for the curbing of illegal development in Wied Garnaw, but their plea was for Mepa to take effective measures against some 6,000 outstanding enforcement notices in Malta and Gozo.

The NGO had written to the Prime Minister on the issue but his office had not even acknowledged the letter. The action group yesterday urged the government to publicly state how it will deal with this "national crisis".

At the end of the news conference, five doves were set free and a couple of olive trees planted in front of the stone corbelled hut close to the main road leading into Santa Lucija.

The action group said these symbolic expressions were meant as a sign of hope that Wied Garnaw will be preserved.