The job done, Astrid buggers off
Astrid Vella professed to be motivated by concern for the fate of the St John’s tapestries. Now that the museum project has been dropped, she doesn’t care about the tapestries anymore.
Off she goes, onto the next thing. She’s in her war-rooms right now, plotting her attack on the Renzo Piano parliament project with a motley crew of like-minded people. Then she’ll emerge from that lair to tell us that the people have spoken, after having hastily cobbled together a petition with 1,500 signatures from Mr Ransley’s flat at 143/5 Tower Road, Sliema – the right sort of address for a hotbed of populist rebellion.
As for those tapestries, nary a second thought. They can rot, they can stay rolled up and not displayed. She doesn’t give a damn. Her job is done. When people asked where instead they might be hung, she brushed it off with an airy “Oh they can use a palazzo.” Told this was a ridiculous suggestion, she changed her version: “I never said use a palazzo for the tapestries. I said move the foundation out of their offices and hang the tapestries there instead. Then the offices can be housed in a palazzo.” Clearly, she hasn’t seen the foundation offices, either, just as she hasn’t seen the tapestries.
So come on, Astrid. Take a break from plotting your next MLPAD coalition action, and give us some answers.
1. What palazzo/s did you have in mind?
2. How many would be sufficient?
3. How much of our money do you propose using to pay for them?
4. How does the government force the owners to sell them ir they don’t want to do so?
5. Should they be requisitioned?
6. How do you propose fitting the 29 tapestries, with a drop of six metres, into the foundation’s current offices? Will you perhaps be taking your scissors to them?
7. How do you create museum-traffic access to the foundation’s offices without disturbing the structural integrity of the building?
8. Do you want the tapestries to be displayed, or are you happy to see things stay the way they are?
9. Do you have any concrete suggestions, any reports from that AD fundamentalist Marco Cremona perhaps, as to how these tapestries might be displayed now, or is this something you’re not even thinking about, because it wasn’t your objective in the first place?
Come on, Astrid. This isn’t a game.
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FAA is circulating an e-mail with their version of the ‘truth’. Their focus (line of attack) is on Richard Cachia Caruana and curator Cynthia de Giorgio. They also try to “de-link” themselves from the MLP.
Ivan Camilleri should name the project to which the funds have been rerouted. My suspicion is that this tourist project is just a pie in the sky. The EU is quite specific usually. Probably this is another FAA myth which is being circulated.
[Daphne – The funds have not been re-routed. Ivan Camilleri, for reasons best known to himself, didn’t describe the situation correctly. The funds theoretically remain there for the next four years. During this period, organisations may devise tourism-related projects, research them, and submit applications for them. Astrid Vella said she would prefer to see the funds used for For St Elmo. Now she should put her money where her mouth is and help work on the research and application process. But she’s not interested in actually creating anything, just destroying. And quite frankly, she’s not capable of doing it, either, because she’s one of those talk-talk-talk-no-substance Maltese bullshitters.]
*******************************************
Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA) welcomes the withdrawal of the St John’s Foundation underground museum, a decision which was indicated years ago by the MEPA heritage experts when they stated “The concept of excavations in the vicinity of the cathedral would not be favourably considered due to the risk these might pose to the structure of one of Malta’s foremost monuments and the art treasures within.”
FAA also welcomes the confirmation reported by correspondent Ivan Camilleri in Brussels that the EU funds earmarked for this project will not be lost, but go to another Maltese tourism-related project, as FAA has always maintained.
Along with architects and engineers who FAA consulted on this project, geologist Peter Gatt further reports some alarming facts about Valletta’s soft rock (globigerina limestone) :
“Tension cracks in rocks (joints) would be expected to be common at the top of Sceberras Hill where St John’s is located. If excavation exposes a sizeable joint oriented in a particular direction, an entire wedge of rock may fail, causing catastrophic damage to the Cathedral [similar to the] excavation of the Sliema car park, and Bugibba, when women died buried under rubble etc
Globigerina Limestone is a soft rock which may deform in a brittle as well as ductile manner. Even if we are spared mass failure, creating a void will alter stresses in the rock and cause slow deformation which will increase damage to the Cathedral structure in the form of tension cracks (kunsenturi) in the Cathedral. This may ruin Mattia Preti’s vault paintings.
The excavation will alter the local hydrology ie. pathways taken by rain water in rock and may result in a localised temporary build up of water along the walls of the completed (damp sealed) underground structure. This increase in humidity will be disastrous for the Cathedral, causing increased salt crystallisation.” view the full text of the experts’ reports by clicking here.
In fact, recent excavations carried out beneath the Monte di Pietà resulted in serious and widespread tension cracks (kunsenturi) along the walls. This was also the reason why excavations of the car park next to the Mosta Rotunda were immediately ruled out and not allowed to go to EIA stage. One wonders what pressure was put on MEPA to allow an EIA for an excavation outside St John’s when this was refused for the Rotunda, a more recent and less vulnerable structure which is not listed as a scheduled heritage monument.
Contrary to what was incorrectly reported in the Times, FAA never urged any MPs to vote in favour of the PL’s motion. The parliamentary motion was not mentioned anywhere on FAA’s petition, however this case inevitably poses a number of questions which require answers from the Authorities.
Since MEPA had immediately indicated this application as unacceptable, why was it being processed if Mepa’s scheduling of St. John’s Cathedral as a Grade 1 monument specifically prohibits the proposed structural changes?
Past acceptance of EU project proposals have required ownership of the site, however the ground under St John’s Square and Street does not belong to the Foundation. The Foundation’s application as an NGO is not valid as the Foundation is not a registered NGO. As such, how did the project qualify for funding from the Planning and Priorities Criteria Division within the OPM to the tune of nearly €14,000,000 from Malta’s Structural Funds?
Therefore notwithstanding Mr. Richard Cachia Caruana’s and the Foundation members’ statements on 12.02.2009, FAA reiterates that the Foundation board and Curator should immediately resign for the following reasons:
The Foundation members all acted beyond their remit to ‘administer the Church and Museum in order to ensure its effective conservation and management as a historic and architectural monument as well as a sacred place of worship.’ This does not authorise the Foundation to launch expansion projects without prior clearance from Church and State. This cost the taxpayer €15,000 in press advertising for the project in addition to hundreds of thousands of euros more spent on public presentations, architects’ fees and trips to Monza.
Systematically concealing this project from the public for over two years, (including only applying for a permit on the eve of the national elections when everyone would be distracted), could be considered a serious breach of ethics in a project concerning a scheduled public monument. Furthermore the Foundation allowed this application to be processed and obtained EU funding for the project in full knowledge that Government was carrying out re-paving costing hundreds of thousands of euros of public funds, which works would have been destroyed by the St John’s project.
Systematically misinforming the public about different aspects of the project, including the myth that there would be no excavation under St. John’s and that if the project were cancelled, Malta would lose the EU funding.
Gross irresponsibility in pressing on with the project in spite of being aware of many expert reports highlighting the grave risks of the project, including the MEPA Directorate declaration that “The project is a non-starter due to the fact that no mitigation measures can guarantee that the Cathedral’s foundations will not be affected”
Does this reflect the Foundation’s insistence that it “was only acting in the interest of St. John’s”?
FAA expects to the Government to request the resignation of the members of the Foundation as this is a matter of mismanagement of Malta’s prime heritage asset and also of public funds. The public has the right to expect good governance from its public representatives, elected or not.
Flimkien ghal Ambjent Aħjar
14th February 2009
They sent me a PR email. My question is who in the world gave them my email address: The Times?
But I’m writing them an email back.
Apparently the Eggspert was Peter Gatt, a geologist. Now with my ignorance in this area, I still think a civil engineer or an architect or rather a team of them would have been more suitable than one geologist.
[Daphne – One geologist who didn’t probe underground, what’s more. Your email address: lobbyists who don’t respect the democratic process don’t respect privacy, either. They certainly wouldn’t have got your email address from The Times, which must conform to data protection rules. They would have used what I call ‘reaping’ – taking your address off circular emails, or getting all their friends to send in their email contacts list.]
Read the leading article in The Sunday Times:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090215/opinion/editorial
And the leading article in The Malta Independent on Sunday is about this subject, too, but it doesn’t seem to be on line.
They got it using a data mining software, I have no idea how I got subscribed to it. In fact I unsubscribed.
http://87.237.8.246/
Let us not forget that we have no right to destroy our heritage, as the saying goes “we have not inherited this country from our fathers, but we have borrowed it from our children”.
Sometimes I think we are using EU funds like some people use buffet diners, instead of taking what we need we try to take everything, even if we don’t need it we try to invent the need for it. I cannot understand how we can take a chance in losing St John’s Cathedral, even if this chance is very remote. To some people it does not matter if a woman loses her life as long as others make thousands of Euro. It does not matter if we lose Hagar Qim and Imnajdra as long as someone makes money out of the quarry or the monstrosity they are building now.
It does not matter that some people’s patios have no light as long as the contractors make millions. By the way, I know Sliema as well; I lived there for the first 30 years of my life, when Sliema was the most beautiful town and not the concrete jungle we have today. I saw the greed for money destroy it, this is why I can understand why Astrid Vella, being a Sliema resident as well, is fighting for the environment. I wonder why you don’t take her side since you are also from Sliema, but maybe you don’t remember the Sliema I knew since you are younger than me and in your youth its downfall had already started. Whoever fights for the environment, be it MLP, AD, PN or FAA has my full support.
[Daphne – Nothing stays the same forever, Grace. Manhattan, too, was full of beautiful houses, and so was London. The problem is not that the houses were demolished, but the poor concept and design of what replaced them. God forbid we should ever reach a stage where the old is not permitted to make way for the new. If that were the case, we would all be living in huts right now. A balance has to be struck, yes, but it shouldn’t be struck at the expense of people’s property rights. I’m not a big one for sentimental attachment to things; I tend to move on. I’ve never seen a Saltfish lorry following a hearse. As far as I’m concerned, the Sliema of my childhood is gone and now I live somewhere else and have children who don’t care about the Sliema of my childhood because they never saw it, just as I didn’t care about the Valletta of my grandparents’ childhood because I didn’t know it. We only care about what we know – the here and now. Lots of buildings in Sliema were destoyed before you or I were born. Are we hankering after them? No. I live just outside Mosta. Mosta, too, was full of beautiful old houses. It is unrecognisable from old photographs. But guess what? I don’t look at those old photographs and say ‘How quaint and beautiful’. I look at them and shudder at what it must have been like to live there. It must have been horrible living in the 19th century, even if the houses were beautiful. And they must have been damned uncomfortable.
How do you know that we were going to lose St John’s Co-Cathedral, Grace? Oh yes, Astrid Vella told you, the very same Astrid Vella who emailed out a petition-signing request asserting that “the environmental impact assessment is already flawed”, when it hadn’t even been published yet. I sometimes wonder whether any of you travel beyond the usual routes of Rome-London-Thailand, though even the first two are enough if you visit a little more than Oxford Street and Piazza di Spagna. You will have noticed that there is plenty of building and excavation going on. What I find particularly hilarious is the suggestion that we might disturb ‘something’ beneath Valletta. Valletta is one of the few cities in Europe where one is certain not to find anything at all beyond the foundations of the 16th c. buildings. We know EXACTLY when it was built, in its entirety, and that it was built on a bare headland. It is not Mdina.
I am also intensely amused at the Maltese definition of ‘the environment’, which has become increasingly elastic and now means construction rather than mother nature. Unfortunately, the last few governments were to blame by incorporating the environment portfolio with that of public works, leading people to associate the two in their minds. It’s also the problem with the incorporation of the ‘environment and planning’ authority, when the two are clearly distinct and should have been kept so. The biggest environmental problems in Malta right now are not construction or St John’s museum, but the insane levels of crop-spraying and the draining of groundwater. Those are real, serious environmental problems, about which Mrs Vella and her town-dwelling coterie know nothing and care even less. Over the last eight years or so, insects have disappeared from the surrounding fields in the agricultural area where I live. I have not seen one butterfly or dragonfly in all this time. Even the ticks have vanished – I used to have to delouse my dogs manually every day in the summer for years, despite using a protective spray. Now they don’t get a single one. Agricultural land throughout Malta is riddled with illegal groundwater wells (boreholes). But all the fundamentalists can see is construction – because essentially, they are not pro-environment, but anti-government and anti-capitalist.]
You, who are so upset by this whole episode, can you answer my simple questions please?
Why the project, if it was so needed and important for the future of our country, was called off? the goverment had the chance, easily with its one-seat majority, to go to parliament and stand for the vote and case closed? Why you didn’t criticise Mrs Vella before this episode happened, knowing that this project was on the FAA agenda for at least three years?
Awaiting some simple answers.. And please Daphne, don’t waste time lecturing me whether tolerant has 1 L or two. Maybe I am not as good as you in English but I think you understand what I mean…
[Daphne – Given that I am not Astrid Vella, yes, I will answer your simple questions. 1. The project was called off because Mrs Vella saw an opportunity in getting her way by stroking the very same Nationalist MP for whose resignation she screamed and agitated last March. So much for her integrity. So no, on this issue the government did not have a one-seat majority. 2. I didn’t criticise Mrs Vella’s actions beforehand because I am not an opponent of free speech. I respect her right to say what she thinks about projects and to lobby against them. What I don’t respect is her lack of integrity in some of the methods she used, particularly her opportunistic use of an MP for whose resignation she lobbied last year. 3. It wasn’t a lecture on the spelling of ‘tolerant’, merely some advice that one’s arguments are weakened by poor use of grammar, erroneous spelling and badly constructed sentences. We all take arguments more seriously when they are well written. That’s all.]
Who is the Helen Caruana Galizia on the committee?
[Daphne – She has no legal right to that name, but being of the same mentality as Astrid Vella, Mary Darmanin, Marie Benoit and the rest of the chuntering gang, she uses it when on her flying visits to Malta to interfere in Maltese affairs, thinking that it carries all the weight of her much-respected late father, Professor Victor Caruana Galizia. She doesn’t live in Malta. She lives in England, and has done so since before I was born. Her real name is Tomkins, and has been since the 1960s. But Helen Tomkins on the committee of the FAA would be a case of ‘who det’? And so she fishes out her maiden surname. To answer your question: she is my husband’s first cousin and thus also a first cousin and VERY close ally of Alfred Sant’s foolishly and pathetically still-obsessed never-was-wife. They are both of a piece, coming from very privileged backgrounds but favouring the ‘hamalli’ over at Labour as a form of inverted snobbery. In another country and another life they might have done a Patty Hearst http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/hearst/hearsthome.html or run off to join the Brigate Rosse. You know, that kind of mentality – a grudge against the society into which they were born, and at the same time a desperate need to be accepted by it. A superiority complex and an inferiority complex at the same time. Though I am embarrassed to say it, she is also both my father’s second cousin (on her mother’s side) and his third cousin (on her father’s side), which makes her both of those once removed, to me. However, I am demonstrably normal.]
@ Graham C. Even PN and MLP sent me PR mail before the elections. I wonder how they got hold of my personal data, since they also knew what my and my husband’s jobs are and other information concerning my children. David Casa is also sending email to university students.
On a completely different matter
http://www.vivamalta.org/forum/showthread.php?p=156707#post156707
Kemm se tatih ? :)
It’s easy to see where she got my email address . My accountant was at an FAA fundraising quiz a while ago after which I suddenly began receiving emails from her. When she first started out I was one of the first people to question her actions and I suddenly found myself on someone’s hit list. I was contacted by the great lady herself who wanted to know what grudge I had against her. I told her in no uncertain terms that people in glass-houses or apartment blocks built on the site of old houses should not throw stones.
She’s going to do another one on the Renzo Piano project. I have the perfect term for people of the likes of her: pixxikalda (ghax ma titlaq qatt).
I have been following this saga with some interest as it continues to shed light on a great number of imbalances between the proposer and the objector. I do not wish to comment on the validity of the project per se.
The proposercarries out an environmental impact assessment and spends a hefty sum of money to have it drawn up. Few might know that the EIA, which is drawn up by selected professionals, might recommend that the project be abandoned.
The proposer also commissions an architectural firm to produce the designs and plans, and also a wider variety of experts. This means more fees involved. The proposer also submits an application to the relevant authority – more and more fees.
The objectors go to see the relevant plans at the MEPA, and come to their own conclusions. A geologist makes a hypothesis, stating that the development MAY cause settlement problems. The fact that the geologist passed these remarks meant only that further studies should be carried out before turning the hypothesis into a fact.
The problem is that the objector and the developer are not at par before the decision-maker. Objectors don’t pay any fees to put in their objection, and they do not need an environmental impact assessment or an architectural firm to submit one. The identity of the objector is not disclosed unless he wishes it to be, while the identity of the proposer is public. Objectors don’t have any pressing bank loans or EU deadlines – they have nothing to lose.
I think objections should be vetted with the same scrutiny as proposals are.
I see environment as the environment I live in not just the natural environment. I seem to be luckier than you I live on the outskirts of Qrendi and I have dragonflies in my small garden (in summer of course) and butterflies but then I don’t spray my citrus trees, and I have a small fish pond which attracts the dragonflies. The problem with our area is the amount of dust (I don’t know what it’s called actually) that comes from the quarries, but maybe it’s better than the exhaust which comes from heavy traffic.
fully in the picture. What the experts actually said about St. Johns.
EXPERTS’ REPORTS:
Heritage Advisory Committee Board Minutes for Case Number : PA00168/08
Doc 02
Estratt mill-Minuti tal-Laqgha nru.120 tal-KKWK tas-17 ta’ Ottubru 2006
1. Hwejjeg Ohra
2.1 Valletta Kon-Kattidral ta’ San Gwann
Is-Sur Joe Magro Conti ghamel prezentazzjoni lill-kumitat ta’ progett imhejji mill-Fondazzjoni tal-Konkattidral ta’ San Gwann ghall-holqien ta’ spazju gdid ghall-Muzew ta’ l-istess Kattidral.
Il-kumitat ra ukoll u studja dokument intitolat Specifications for a Design Brief for New Museum Complex. Is-Sur Magro Conti wera t-thassib tieghu, u l-kumitat unanimanent qabel mieghu, dwar l-impatti negattivi ta’ dan il-progett, li principalment huma; (1) ir-riskju car ghal1-istruttura tal-Kattidral ikkawzat mit-tahfir konsiderevoli hafna li huwa propost Ii jsir filqrib;
(2) li dan johloq precedent ghall-domandi simili fl-inhawi immedjati, u (3) ir-riskju Ii jigu disturbati xi reperti storici u arkeologici li jistghujinsabu fl-area li se tigi skavata.
Michael Ellul
A/Vici-Chairman
TRANSLATION Doc 02:
Extract from the Minutes of Meeting no. 120 of KKWK of 17th October 2006
1. Other Matters
2.1. Valletta, St John’s Co-Cathedral
Mr. Joe Magro Conti presented the Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC) with the St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation projects to create new space for the museum of the same Cathedral.
The Committee also saw and studied a document entitled Specifications for a Design Brief for New Museum Complex. Mr. Magro Conti expressed his concern, and the Committee unanimously agreed with him, about the negative impacts of this project, which are principally:
(1) the clear risk to the structure of the Cathedral posed by the considerable excavation that is proposed to take place nearby;
(2) the precedent being created for similar demands in the immediate vicinity, and
(3) the risk of disturbing some historic or archaeological remains which may be found in the area to be excavated.
Michael Ellul
A/Vici -Chairman
Doc 03
Comments by HAC re document ‘Specifications for the Design Brief for the New Museum Complex’
30.10.06
1] HAC understands the need to modernize the current Cathedral Museum and to have enough exhibition space to exhibit all the artifacts in the possession of the cathedral including those in storage.
2] HAC is however very much concerned that this very large underground Museum will create logistical problems for Valletta both because of the excavation itself [finds, underground tunnels, services, base of buildings etc] of the work i.e. the damage to the image of such a central part of the city.
3] HAC is very concerned with the effect that the excavations may have on the cathedral structure in general and on its paintings and other fabric in particular.
4] Not enough evidence has been given to explain the need for such a large space, nor has any explanation been given as to what use the current museum space will be devoted to.
5] There is a very major concern as to the placing of air conditioning and other services in the area which would be hard to camouflage.
6] Such a proposal should include clear and specific ‘traffic’ flow around the museum. Such a proposal should include a visitors’ management plan for the cathedral.
Dr Albert Ganado, Chairman, HAC
Doc 04
MEMORANDUM
From: Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee
To: Director General, MEPA
Extract from the Minutes of Meeting no.235 of the Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee held on 28 August 2007.
The CHAC studied the 6th Draft of the Development Brief for a Visitor’s Centre and new exhibition spaces in St John’s Co Cathedral and discussed the project on the basis of the information contained in this document. The committee noted that the project for the creation of new expedition space for the museum entails two major interventions:
1. the excavations in St John Square up to façade of St John’s Co Cathedral
and:
2. The roofing over of the cemetery courtyard on Merchant Street and the elimination of its current use.
With regard to Point 1 the Committee, together with IHM, are of the opinion that any excavation in the immediate surroundings of the Cathedral is extremely dangerous to the structural stability of the Cathedral itself, and the proposal is therefore not acceptable, also in view of the fact that it seems that there has been no thorough and scientific study of the condition of the foundations, the existing underground structures and spaces and the nature of the geology of the area.
Regarding Point 2, the Committee feels that the sacred nature of the cemetery should be safeguarded and respected and that the proposed uses are not compatible with the important historical and religious nature of the site.
The Committee would also like to point out that the Development Brier does not indicate the location of spaces required for the air-conditioning plant, electrical sub-station and services which are necessarily considerable in a project of this scale.
Michael Ellul
A/Vici-Chairman
PA168/08 – CHAC mtg 349 bid-data 29/07/08
Illum saret prezentazzjoni taz-zewg progetti godda alternattivi rigward l-applikazzjoniet
(PA167/08 & PA168/08) dwar il-Kon Katidral ta’ San Gwann fejn kienu prezenti Ms Cynthia Degiorgio, Mr Paul Attard u il-perit Bencini ghall-applikant u Mr Mark Anthony Mifsud ghall- SCH. Il-kumitat jirrakkomanda li il-case officer ghandu jikkonsulta l-EIA Team dwar jekk dan il-progett jikkwalifikax ghal-EIA jew xi studju iehor fejn ghandhom jigu ikkonsidrati b’mod partikolari, l-oggezzjonijiet tas-CHAC fiz-zewg minuti immarkati Doc 2/3/4 fil- PA167/08 & PA168/08. F’kas ta’ dan, il-Kumitat qed jitlob lill-Mepa jistabbilixxi it-Terms of Reference biex isiru l-istudji. L-SCH ghandhom jibghatu il-kummenti taghhom bil-miktub.
Translation:
PA 168/08 – Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee (CHAC) meeting dated 29.07.08
Today the two new alternative projects re. the applications (PA167/08 & PA 168/08) for the St John’s Co-Cathedral were presented. Ms. Cynthia Degiorgio, Mr. Paul Attard and Architect Bencini were present for the applicant, and Mr. Mark Anthony Mifsud for for the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage. The Committee recommends that the Case Officer
should consult the EIA Team as to whether this project qualifies for an EIA or other studies where the CHAC objections marked Doc 2/3/4 in PA167/08 & PA168/08 are to be specifically considered. In this case, the Committee asks MEPA to establish Terms of Reference in order to carry out these studies. The Superintendence asks to be sent the comments in writing.
LEGAL LEVEL OF PROTECTION given to St John’s Co-Cathedral
Grade 1: Buildings of outstanding architectural or historical interest that shall be preserved in their entirety. Demolition or alterations which impair the setting or change the external or internal appearance, including anything contained within the curtilage of the building, will not be allowed. Any interventions allowed must be directed to their scientific restoration
and rehabilitation. Internal structural alterations will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances where this is paramount for reasons of keeping the building in active use.
GEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF THE ST JOHN’S CO-CATHEDRAL PROJECT
The problem is related to permissible risk in view of the importance of St John’s. The following are the geological problems of excavation:
1. Tension cracks in rocks (technically called joints) would be expected to be common at the top of Sceberras Hill where St John’s is located.
2. Joints (tensional features) in rock may be expected to decrease with depth, because of greater confining pressure. However, the structural geology of Valletta is also affected by numerous faults of Late Miocene age which are poorly studied. These are clearly visible wherever there are rock outcrops in Valletta. These faults have created stresses in the rocks which release jointing. An example of deep jointing is found in the tunnel linking the Floriana car park to the waterfront. The roof of the tunnel shows classic cases of wedge failure of rock which occurred during or after tunnelling, indicating the presence of joints even at deep levels.
3. Increasing depth of excavation increases risk of failure sometimes at an exponential trend. Deep excavation increases the likelihood of encountering joints. In addition, deep excavation can ‘daylight’ large blocks that become loose, and may remove ‘keystones’ with catastrophic consequences to nearby buildings.
4. If during excavation, a sizeable joint oriented in a particular direction (there are elaborate techniques to determine this) is exposed, an entire wedge of rock may fail, causing catastrophic damage to the Cathedral. There have been several instances when this happened in Malta, e.g. during excavation of Sliema car park, in St Paul’s Bay, when two women died buried under rubble etc…
5. Globigerina Limestone is a soft rock and may deform in a brittle as well as ductile manner.
Even if we are spared mass failure, creating a void will alter stresses in the rock and cause slow deformation which will increase damage to the Cathedral structure in the form of tension cracks (kunsenturi) in the church. This may ruin Mattia Preti’s painting on the vault.
6. The excavation will alter the local hydrology ie. pathways taken by rain water in rock and may result in a localised temporary build up of water along the walls of the completed (damp sealed) underground structure. This increase in humidity will be disastrous for the Cathedral, causing increased salt crystallisation.
7. Core sampling, the system commonly used by MEPA is totally inadequate for a case like this as a fissure or joint can easily be missed. Similarly, more high-tech radar techniques cannot penetrate beyond a certain depth. The only reliable method of geological survey in cases such as these is an investigation trench that goes down the FULL DEPTH of the final excavation,
however a four-storey trench is very unsafe and no geologist will risk his life to go down such a trench. Such trenches are usually about 5m deep, at most.
These issues are very delicate and cannot be concluded overnight e.g., it took years of study before a ground intervention on the leaning Tower of Pisa was concluded and surely St John’s Cathedral is as precious to us as the Tower of Pisa. A superficial approach such as core sampling would be ludicrous and would ignore the complex and intense population of faults in the area. We cannot have that at St John’s, especially since this is a masonry building unlike modern buildings with reinforced structures.
In conclusion I believe the level of risk being taken is too high and a risk assessment seems to be lacking. I am not at all convinced about the effectiveness of MEPA’s EIA methodology for site investigation prior to excavation.
Peter Gatt,
Geologist
[Daphne – I’m so glad you posted this, Alfred, because it saved me retyping it. 1. Joe Magro Conti was at university with me, in the same course and at the same time, which means that his opinion is as expert as mine is. We have the same upper second class degree with the difference that I was on the Dean’s List and he wasn’t. 2. Michael Ellul is a lovely gentleman to whom I have spoken about heritage sites like Fort St Angelo, but he has been retired for many years now. 3. Peter Gatt’s report is a joke, full of hypotheses and ‘mays’, and it’s actually not a report at all, but the sort of opinion piece that I write – you know, what Peter Gatt thinks, as opposed to what Peter Gatt reports back after having investigated the situation thoroughly. And I say this not as a newspaper columnist, but as Daphne Caruana Galizia BA(Hons) in archaeology, fellow student and university contemporary of your expert Joe Magro Conti.]
I have an even better one. Xidja f’ sorm il-patri.
[Daphne – When my grandfather saw that in my school textbook of Qwiel Maltin, he had to be restrained from ringing the headmistress in protest. Vulgar idioms were mainly what kept us conscious during Maltese lessons.]
Alas, every family has some!
@Grace,
I’m a university student and I’ve never received anything from David Casa, unless hes with the chaplaincy. PN, AD and MLP never sent me any emails. They did, however, send me requests & messages on social networking sites (which is perfectly reasonable since they are open and public), but although there is an FFA facebook group (which I declined to join), they still somehow managed to get my email (from a malicious data-mining programme) and sent me newsletters dating back from the beginning (when I didn’t care about the subject, in fact I had archived them and then forgot about them).
Email is strictly personal.
The only political emails I get are from Norman Lowell and his Viva Malta site. I had subscribed to them in 2005 and never bothered to unsubscribe. In any case at least he makes me laugh; Astrid Vella makes me cringe.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to replies from Mrs Astrid Vella and the FFA. A conversation is a two-way street after all. I haven’t closed the book on this one yet.
@ Grace
Projects under the EU structural funds have to undergo a very strict selection and negotiation processes that have to satisfy both the government requirements (as indicated in its National Reform Programme as well as in the Operation Programmes) as well as the Commission (all projects have to be audited by the Commission).
As for Astrid Vella, she is also misquoting the regulations – the St John Foundation is considered a public equivalent body (in actual fact a level higher than an NGO as far as Structural Funds are concerned). So they had all the right to put in an application.
I would invite Ms Astrid Vella to have the courage to come up with her own proposal, to write it, defend it and then spend the next four years managing it – and then she would be in position to comment. And by the way, she will also have to accept to be legally and FINANCIALLY responsible for the project for up to five years after its termination of the project, in her own personal capacity. This is what the project leader (presumably either Ms de Giorgio or Mons Calleja) had to accept – that really means being personally responsible for EUR14 million, which is no joke.
Graham C / Daphne – Issa gibtuni inse’!
The FAA got my email address, though I DO know how that happened. Around the same time, I started receiving AD newsletters via email. The AD newsletters only stopped when I asked them to remove me from their mailing list, which I had never asked to be on in the first place.
Looking back, I don’t think it was a coincidence at all. I just never made the connection.
[Daphne – Of course! All the FAA stuff I receive comes from somebody called David Camilleri, who used to send me campaigning letters from an AD Ghawdex email address in the last election campaign. Now he’s sending me FAA, AD and Zmienijietna – The Voice of the Left things – the latter being the communist party of Malta, or what’s left of it. Tal-biki.]
I wonder whether the petition with the “1,500 signatures” is the same one which is available online on the FAA’s website. The latter shows a total of 695 signatures, with many duplicate names and quite a bunch of “anonymous” signatories.
[Daphne – I can’t believe the press didn’t bother to find out. I’ll ask for a copy, and plough through it. Mine will be an expert opinion on whether those people really exist and whether they live where they say they do.]
Speaking of Zmienijitna, it is worth noting that it is headed by the same individual, who is also in charge of the identical AD Youths and Graffiti, all being left wing delusional groups. The same guy, Michael Briguglio, voted for the MLP in March 2008 (he admitted this on Xarabank), while representing AD on the Sliema local council.
I can’t figure out the logic behind creating so many organisations (whose negligible membership is limited to the same handful of individuals) to deliver the same message. Maybe their aim is to issue multiple press releases giving the false impression that a number of organisations are opposing a particular issue, when in reality it is just one individual.
[Daphne – That’s it, exactly, and they’re accepted at face value by the press.]
“To answer your question: she is my husband’s first cousin and thus also a first cousin and VERY close ally of Alfred Sant’s foolishly and pathetically still-obsessed never-was-wife”
Why do you have to be so personal in your arguments? Shame, shame, shame…..
[Daphne – Because we’re talking about persons, not pieces of furniture. Persons, unlike pieces of furniture, have agendas, background, motivation and IQ. All of these are factors that must be taken into account when assessing a person’s credibility. I imagine that when you assess the opinion of Norman Lowell, you will take into account the fact that he is an unstable racist. And I also imagine that if I were to describe his views as being those of an unstable racist, you will not accuse me of being ‘personal’ but accurate – just as I am accurate in this case. You overlook the fact that that these are people I KNOW, whose background I KNOW, and so I am in a position to put their ‘opinions’ into context while you are not. It strikes me as blatantly obvious that if Alfred Sant’s still-besotted ‘never was wife’ (that’s the tragedy of annulments in the absence of divorce) campaigns against the St John’s museum and the members of the cathedral foundation – or rather, some members – there might be a rather deeper reason than her civil engineering knowledge which causes her to fear the consequences of excavating beneath St John’s Square. Over and out.]
Why over and out?? I think I just want argue with you on some views on which we differ. In a calm and civilised manner…
Something is really twisted in here ta!! What does Ms Darmanini connection with Alfred Sant has to do with the whole thing? Ok, you know the background and opinions of these people and I agree I know nothing. What I know is their arguments and yours and I’m sorry to say, their arguments won over yours. And the Prime minister choose theirs not yours, judging on his decisions. Ifs and buts are superfluous. Your civil engineering knowledge is more or less the same as her no, or you think you have the divine gift of knowing all?! Don’t dare the comparison with Mr lowell please. Its totally out of context!
And if, I repeat if, they have a hidden agenda as you are trying to state, I think it is so obvious that you have your agenda too.
[Daphne – 1. Mary Darmanin and Helen ‘Caruana Galizia’ Tomkins are two people obsessed with Alfred Sant. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that when they campaign against what they perceive to be government initiatives involving certain people, their motivation might very well be patriotic but it is reasonable to conclude that malice is also a motivating factor. 2. Their arguments did not win over mine, or those of others. I made no arguments, nor did anyone else. The field was left wide open to them to feed the gullible public one side of the story. 3. The prime minister did not choose their arguments. You clearly have a very low level of understanding of politics. 4. My civil engineering knowledge is zero. The difference between me and Astrid is that I know this. I am, however, a fairly intelligent person who grasps the fact that the skyscrapers and vast underground chambers I see wherever I travel have been built and excavated, therefore it cannot be possible that the Sceberras promontory is the one place on earth where one cannot build something large below ground level. 5. The comparison with Norman (not mister, please, because that denotes respect) Lowell is not out of place but entirely in order. Astrid is trading on precisely the same unquestioning gullibility and overt malice that infests Maltese society.]