Has the FAA chairman ever worked on an EIA?
Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar are all-out campaigning against the reliability of environmental impact assessments. I think the time has come to ask whether the lobby group’s chairman, Paul Cardona – who is a marine engineer – has ever worked on an environmental impact assessment himself. I rather think he might have.
Here’s Astrid Vella, talking out of the seat of her pants on the matter of EIAs, in Malta Today.
“EIAs are presently a developer’s delight, allowing them to legitimise even unacceptable projects. The fact that the consultants are selected and paid by the developers prejudices their impartiality…..Moreover, it is not just the developer who incurs an expense, but also the taxpayer who pays thousands of euros for weeks of assessment of each EIA.”
Mrs Vella then goes on to contradict herself by claiming that she is not saying that there should be no environmental impact assessments, or that they should be bankrolled by the taxpayer. So what is she saying, exactly? God knows. Maybe Bill Gates can pay for them. He has a lot of spare cash. Or perhaps the very objective and disinterested FAA can do a spot of fund-raising by upping the ante on quiz nights, and do the financing itself.
As an interim measure, Mrs Vella has had a brilliant scheme: set up a register of approved consultants and bar from working on these things “consultants who submit studies which are not objective and do not reflect the true situation”. The woman is beyond belief. Does she even begin to realise that this sort of register is the beginning of all kinds of possibilities of abuse, and not the end?
Who is going to approve consultants or exclude them – Mrs Vella and her mob? “You were not objective and did not reflect the true situation – you shall be cast out of the Garden of Eden where you shall weep and gnash your teeth, never to work on an environmental impact assessment again.”
And will the chairman of Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar be on the approved list? Errrrrr, now let me just have a long, hard think about that. This smells of protectionist practice and a cartel in the making, but I wouldn’t imagine Mrs Vella knows anything about that.
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I have never done an EIA but if I had I would consider Astrid Vella’s words a personal and defamatory insult. Consultants who do EIAs observe the situation, weigh the facts and assess what would be the effects of the project being considered. To say that they are not reliable because they are paid by the developer is tantamount to accusing them of corruption.
Astrid Vella has variously accused the Mepa ex-Chairman, JPO and lately all members of the St John’s Foundation of improper behaviour; they were all told to resign of course. It’s now the turn of freelance consultants to be disapproved of.
She would definitely have to be on the register of approved consultants (approved by her presumably). Nobody knows the Sliema baroque period like she does after all.
It is not fair that the FAA implies that the specialist consultants who produce EIAs, are not reliable since they are paid by the developers. A number of projects that I have been professionally involved in were subjected to an EIA, and I can assure you that in most cases the developers were close to losing their patience with the consultant. There is no way that an EIA is an instrument for an easy approval of a project. Of course, one cannot generalise, but most consultants are very aware of MEPA’s concerns and policies, and they very often advise the developer to effect significant changes to their proposal, to ensure the project has the least negative environmental impact as practically possible, or they wouldn’t proceed with the document. Is the FAA aware that MEPA has to approve of the EIA consultant chosen by the developer, as well as of his nominated team of experts? Or will this now be termed as collusion? There is undoubtedly a lot to criticise about the MEPA, but criticism has to be serious to be credible.