Updated 7.55pm

Plans to build an incinerator in Magħtab will have to be reopened for public consultation after the environmental regulator on Tuesday confirmed a conflict of interest in the project.

The Environment and Resources Authority acknowledged that an environmental impact assessment for the project had been drafted by the CEO of a prominent waste management company. 

The EIA was drawn up by Greenpak CEO and environmental consultant Mario Schembri and had been screened by the regulator itself.  

Concerns about the potential conflict of interest were originally flagged by ADPD chairperson Carmel Cacopardo in a press conference of October of last year.

Cacopardo had also noted that one of ERA's board members, marine biologist Alan Deidun, was also involved in the EIA process. Deidun had subsequently stated that he would recuse himself from any decision to be taken about EIAs in which he was involved.

Back to the drawing board

WasteServ, the government’s waste agency, must now commission another EIA for the project and re-open it to another six week consultation period.

"Those who wish to embark on a career carrying out EIA technical reports are free to do so but they should not be permitted to contaminate the EIA process," Cacopardo said.

When reached for comment, Cacopardo stated that “this might mean that ERA is coming back to its senses”.

“This whole development could have been avoided entirely had ERA, as it is supposedly duty-bound, screened those carrying out EIAs adequately,” Cacopardo said.

“ERA must now pull up its socks and overhaul internal procedures for the vetting of those who carry out EIAs,” he added.

In a public hearing held in December of last year concerning the EIA of the Magħtab incinerator project, Cacopardo had initially flagged the conflict of interest due to Greenpak’s contract-based relationship with the government’s waste management agency.

While Schembri had defended his assessment based on his expertise in the field and his stated objectivity. ERA has nonetheless officially restarted the process, a spokesperson confirmed to Times of Malta.

In the press conference held in October of last year, residents had flagged concerns about potential negative effects on the health hazards of neighbouring citizens.

The regulator's decision to send the EIA process back to the drawing board comes after a permit for another major project, the Manoel Island development, was revoked by a tribunal following similar concerns. 

In that case, a report forming part of that project's EIA had been drafted by an architect whose father served on the board of directors of the project developer. 

ERA CEO Michelle Piccinino said in a letter published in Times of Malta on Tuesday that the regulator had listened to criticism of its EIA process and revised it to make it more transparent. 

"Following legal amendments, the recommendations on EIAs are being referred to the ERA board and determined in a sitting held in public," Piccinino wrote.

The Magħtab incinerator is part of the government’s push for a total revamp of Malta's waste management processes, which lag far behind those in other EU member states.

The incinerator will form part of a massive waste complex dubbed the Ecohive project.

Besides the incinerator, the project is also set to include an organic processing plant, a thermal treatment facility and a water treatment facility.

The project is set to cost around €190 million to build, with running maintenance costs of up to €200 million. Plans had to be downscaled following anger from farmers in the area who stood to lose their land in order to accommodate the waste management plans.

Correction April 28: Amended to clarify that a contributor to the Manoel Island EIA, not its author, had an undeclared conflict of interest.