Updated April 22 with response from Grimaldi

Three large passenger ships currently docked at a Cospicua shipyard are keeping their engines running “day and night”, a Cottonera activist group has claimed in a plea for authorities to ensure shore power infrastructure is installed there. 

The claim has been disputed by the owners of one of the vessels, Grimaldi, who said their vessel had been at 'dry-docked' at Palumbo and the engines were only turned on on Wednesday because it planned to sail.

Activists Azzjoni Tuna Artna Lura said the air quality in the area "has been abysmal", claiming "in some areas clothes hung out to dry become discoloured by the polluted air."

"The situation is so dire, some residents are being forced to consider moving out of Cottonera altogether,”  it said. 

The coalition of NGOs and local residents noted that Infrastructure Malta has highlighted an EU study likening eight hours of a single cruise ship’s running engines to the emissions generated by 300,000 cars driving from Marsaxlokk to Ċirkewwa. 

Smoke spews out of the docked Grimaldi. It's owners say this was only a temporary situation as the vessel planned to sail. 

The infrastructure agency is currently carrying out an EU-funded project to install shore power facilities at parts of the Grand Harbour and Birżebbuġa. The facilities will allow ships to draw power from the national grid, allowing them to turn off their engines while in port, in line with an EU directive. 

But no such plans were in place for the Palumbo-MSC shipyard in Cospicua, Azzjoni Tuna Artna Lura said, despite it being “where cruise ships are docked for the longest periods on our islands.” 

Palumbo announced a deal to sell 50 per cent of its shipyard stake to cruise giants MSC last year, with the NGO coalition saying on Wednesday that it appeared residents’ fears that the deal would “exasperate the already problematic operation” were materialising. 

One of the vessels currently at the dockyard, cruise ship MSC Musica, has been docked for six weeks, the NGO coalition said. A second, the cruise ship MSC Splendida, returned a few days ago, having already spent five months at the shipyard between October 2020 and March of this year. The third, the activist group said, was a Grimaldi-owned passenger ship that arrived last week. 

“All three keep their engines running day and night,” it noted. 

The MSC Splendida and MSC Musica during the night.

Azzjoni Tuna Artna Lura said that the environmental regulator, ERA, had told the group that it could not provide them with air quality measurements from the area as apparatus was “damaged”.

Labour whip Glenn Bedinfield, who is elected from the district, claimed on TV that ERA had told him that emissions were “not toxic”, the NGO coalition said, adding that Bedingfield had not provided any data to back that claim up.

It noted and welcomed positive developments in the area over the past months, citing the removal of jack-up oil rigs from the Palumbo-MSC shipyard and the decision, announced this week, to relocate an oil tank cleaning facility out of Fort Ricasoli. 

Ship pollution and its impact on locals’ health, however, was being ignored, it said. 

Azzjoni Tuna Artna Lura pleaded with ERA, the Environment Ministry and health authorities to properly monitor air quality in the region, and urged Cottonera MPs to “safeguard their constituents’ wellbeing.”

Its final appeal was to Infrastructure Malta,  “to ensure that ‘Ship-to-Shore’ infrastructure is installed at the Palumbo-MSC shipyard. 

“Without the provision being available at the site with the heaviest cruise liner presence there cannot be any effective ‘Clean Air Project’,” it said. 

Sullivan Maritime Ltd, agents for Grimaldi, said their vessel, the MV Cruise Smeralda has been ‘dry-docked’ since a day after its arrival on April 13.

"Therefore it is impossible that the vessel was identified as ‘having her engines running day and night’, as a ship inside a dry-dock does not turn on its engines," it said in a statement.

"We would like to clarify that the vessel started its engines as it was planned to sail, however due to the high winds, her departure was postponed to Saturday and therefore an accumulation of smoke escaped from the funnels. This will surely not happen again the next time her engines are switched on."

It said The Grimaldi Group will deliver one of the 12 Grimaldi Green 5th Generation (GG5G) ro/ro vessels to Malta on a weekly basis.

"During port stays, the GG5G-class vessels are capable of cutting emissions to ZERO by using electricity stored in mega lithium batteries with a total power of 5 MWh, which are recharged during navigation thanks to shaft generators and 350 m2 of solar panels."