In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Hmmm. This is the message that the FAA sent out to journalists and newsrooms with its press release called ‘The experts DID decide’
Hi,
Please find attached our Press Release with the latest updates on the St John’s Cathedral project. Your readers will be especially interested in the damning geologist’s report which is being released for the fist time today. We ask online news-services to embargo the line: – view the full text of the experts’ reports on www.faa.org.mt until tomorrow Sunday.
Feel free to phone on 99846088 if any other clarifications are necessary.
Thank you,
Astrid Vella
FAA
I’m particularly fascinated to see that she’s talking about “latest updates on the St John’s Cathedral project” when the last time I looked, there was no project. I suppose this is our Astrid’s idea of toying with language.
Astrid, on the other hand, thought that what would galvanise my interest would be the “damning geologist’s report”. Damn right it did. I have seen a report or two in my time, and this isn’t one. I’ll tell you what it almost certainly is. “Hi Peter, do you think there should be a five-storey excavation beneath St John’s Square in Valletta? Love, Astrid”. And Peter Gatt, all the way from Durham University, where he is a doctoral student, emails back with his long-distance, off-the-top-of-his-head response. Astrid Vella hoots triumphantly. She has a report! From a geologist! It’s damning! And other people believe her. Not one reporter gets in touch with this geologist to find out the context of his words, which are being misrepresented as an expert report, almost certainly without his approval, given that people in his position carefully guard their professional credibility. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Towering skyscrapers – which are still standing – were built all over marshy Manhattan a hundred years ago. Suspension bridges spanning 26km tracts of water have been engineered. Man has been to the moon. Satellites orbit the earth. Planes whizz about in the sky. Cruise ships the size of islands navigate the globe. In cities much older and more beautiful than Valletta, excavation takes place every day, and nothing falls down or cracks. But excavating St John’s Square without damaging the cathedral is impossible.
Lie down and weep.
Last night, I emailed some questions to Astrid Vella’s ‘damning geologist’. Let’s see what happens. Here they are.
Dear Mr Gatt,
A brief opinion you wrote for Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar has been described in one of the organisation’s press releases as an ‘expert report’. It does not fit the usual description of a formal scientific report, at least as I know them to be, and I wish to obtain your version of the story before I write about it for The Malta Independent. Are your intentions being correctly represented? Is this what you would call a formal report on which a project decision should be taken, as the organisation suggests? Is it an adequate replacement for an environmental impact assessment? I know the answer to that one, but I need to be able to quote what you have to say. Should you wish to ring me, I am available on 00356 9949 3545. I suspect your words are being taken out of context, as I don’t know of any scientist who would submit a report without a full assessment of the situation.
My questions are beneath, appended to the relevant paragraphs you wrote:
“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.”
Are you saying that there is no way of investigating the rock in a site like this, and that in similar conditions elsewhere in the world excavation takes place without investigation because no investigation is possible? I am sure the Valletta headland case is not unique.
“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.”
1. You say that these issues cannot be concluded overnight. Are you aware that your words have been used by Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar precisely to do what you say cannot be done? The organisation has used them to conclude the matter overnight.
2. “A superficial approach such as core sampling would be ludicrous”. If core sampling is a superficial approach, then wouldn’t you say that using your brief overview of the matter as the final word on the subject is more superficial still?
3. The organisation Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar is describing your words as an ‘expert report’ by a geologist. Your brief opinion does not fit the description of any formal scientific expert report I have seen. Are the words ‘expert report’ your own, or is the situation being misrepresented?Yours sincerely
Daphne Caruana Galizia
23 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Are you sure you want to publish your mobile number?
[Daphne – It’s public already. All people have to do to get it is call directory enquiries; otherwise, it’s in the contacts-bar on every magazine I publish.]
Have these experts ever been to Israel, and Jerusalem in particular? A short visit there will surely give them some insight as how to hollow under extremely old and sensitive structures to uncover much more older and more sensitive remains without damaging either one of them.
Daphne,
This project has not failed because it does not make sense. There appears to be a general lack of trust in the organisations/parties/church. Past experience has shown that large (and often small) projects have trampled over civil rights and incurred uneccessary risk, even with loss of life.
This is just ‘the reaction of the people’ and it is up to everyone involved to listen and learn. There is no need to get technical; if you want to find ‘technical faults’ with the project these can be found on both sides of the fence.
It is positive and democratic that the voice of a (presumed) minority can be heard and the right action taken.
[Daphne – What you are speaking about is the inversion of democracy: minority rule. Astrid Vella has posited a ludicrous ‘solution’ to the problems at the MEPA: the voice of the elite (technical experts) be ignored in favour of the voice of the ‘little man’. But these are not human or civil rights we are talking about. This is a technical project, therefore technical people should decide. The ‘voice of the people’ does not come into it. What next – the voice of the people on who gets to be chief justice? The voice of the people on who gets to be Malta’s judge at the European Court of Human Rights? The voice of the people on whether the AFM should bring in immigrants or shoot them at sea?]
Nahseb bil-giri ha jirrispondik, Daphne. Ahna li qeghdin fil-bini lill dan hadd ma jafu u hadd ma jqabbdu meta jkollna bzonn opinjoni qabel ma nhaffru.
Il-core sampling u clse terrain radar huma ghodod eccellenti li jtuk stampa cara hafna ta’ x’hemm taht. Tant hu hekk li kapaci anke jghidulek il-morfologija tal-blat ta’ taht, jekk hux tafli bi blat fuq, jekk mazkan, jekk bid-deghbien, ect. Il blat ta’ taht San Gwann naqta’ rasi li hu qawwi ta’ fuq, ghax hafna drabi hekk ikun fuq gholja. Ara l-barrieri tal-qawwi fejn ikunu, dejjem fuq l-gholjiet u qatt fil-baxx. Din jafa kull student li studja il-gografija ta’ Malta, li l-ewwel ktieb fuqa inkiteb minn Fr Ransley……forsi jigi minn dik li l-flat taghha huwa il-field HQ tal-Generalissimo Vella?
….public opinion……you were writing about this a few days ago….
[Daphne – Where I come from, public opinion is surveyed, polled and clinically dissected, and not speculated upon.]
And yet, we have a technical, professional person giving his opinion (albeit not a report) and we are questioning how correct it is. It is as though professional opinions must fit in with our preconceived ideas at all costs.
[Daphne – Sigh. I read the ‘damning geologist’s report’. There is nothing in there which I didn’t learn during a geography credit taught by geologist Anna Spiteri – except for the ‘opinions’, of course – while reading archaeology at university. I have a son who is a final-year geography student who was in stitches over this ‘damning report’. The point is that it is not a report at all. It is a cursory opinion, the sort you would email to a friend who asks what you think fuq-fuq. I’m quite sure Astrid Vella knows Anna Spiteri. Why wasn’t she asked to write a report? Because she would have insisted on it being done properly, and not allowed her name to be bandied about like this, perhaps? On my desk right now I have a book called Limestone Isles in a Crystal Sea – The Geology of the Maltese Islands. All Astrid had to do was flick through that to find out what kind of rock lies beneath Valletta. And so does anyone else.]
Daphne,
Methinks I smell a rat. Perhaps a ‘technical’ rat?
I’ve just finished writing a letter to the The Malta Independent on Sunday regarding Astrid’s article. I hope they publish it because her article contains an underlying message that is worrying. The title (The Experts DID decide the St John’s project) shows a disregard for the law that is worse than a lack of understanding.
In a country where the rule of law exists, it is not up to the experts to decide on development issues but to MEPA. The Authority may consult experts and commission EIAs just as it may hold public hearings, talk to NGOs, invite the public to file objections and do whatever else is necessary to take an informed decision but, ultimately, this decision lies with MEPA and no one else: not the experts, not the public and still less the FAA.
One might disagree with some of MEPA’s decisions, just as one might disagree with some decisions of the law-courts but it remains the authority established by law and the idea that a lobby cartel can take over this role is essentially subversive. If such institutions are undermined it would be the weaker members of society who would ultimately suffer, the semi-literates who do not know the difference between ‘waste’ and ‘waist’ or ‘hung’ and ‘hanged’, the clueless ones who are blissfully unaware how they have been manipulated.
“Moggy Monday, 16 February 1938hrs
And yet, we have a technical, professional person giving his opinion (albeit not a report) and we are questioning how correct it is. It is as though professional opinions must fit in with our preconceived ideas at all costs.”
Wanna bet that pretty soon the blogs and papers will be full of articles and comments demonising, vilifying and denigrating this technical and professional person and tearing his credibility to shreds?
[Daphne – Hardly, Sybil. Peter Gatt has done that for himself already, by allowing his professional name to be used in this unprofessional way. I don’t think anyone has anything else to add. I’m quite sure he is mortified that his email to Astrid is being described in public as an ‘expert report’ and that it is being touted about as something no geologist would ever call a report, let alone an expert report.]
@Antoine Vella
Welcome to the EU where Joe Citizen and his opinion truly count.
Why is Mr Gatt’s report upsetting you so much? Having studied geology yourself, can you highlight just one sentence that compromises the validity of this report or Peter’s integrity for that matter? I don’t think anybody is saying that this is a fact-finding report; in fact it simply argues why certain criteria need to be in place for a full and proper geological survey to take place. Furthermore Peter’s reasoning is based on what we already know about Malta’s rock formation, properties of the geological strata and the available scientific methods that can be used to carry exactly this type of detailed study. Peter’s report is a Preliminary Assessment report and is an Expert report nonetheless.
[Daphne – There is nothing about Mr Gatt’s email to Astrid that upsets me. On the contrary, what upsets me is that an email of this nature is being bandied about as an ‘expert report’, causing him a great deal of professional embarrassment. It underscored the importance, for me, of never sending an email to somebody telling them what I think about a situation lest the same thing happen to me. I am quite sure that his peers are cringing on his behalf.
“I don’t think anybody is saying that this is a fact-finding report” – that is precisely what the FAA is saying. An expert report must necessarily include the facts. This is not an expert report but a cursory opinion emailed to a friend who asked.
I don’t know Mr Gatt, and actually, I feel rather sorry for him that he has been embroiled in this mess.
No, it is not a preliminary assessment report, and he does not enter at all into the question of available methods that can be used to study the rock. On the contrary, he says that there are NO methods which can be used to study the rock. This is a ridiculous suggestion if ever there was one, which is why I made a point of asking him what happens in similar situations elsewhere – excavation without investigation? A much larger ‘hole’ was excavated on the Tigne peninsula, in rock that is identical. One assumes that the rock was investigated before millions of euros in private investment were put at risk. All Astrid had to do was ask Professor Alex Torpiano, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, how it was done. He supervises the project. But she can’t, because she has spent the last few years crusading against him. So instead, she had to ask a doctoral student in geology at the University of Durham to email over what he thinks. And you say this isn’t a farce?
I repeat: I don’t even know Mr Gatt. I think he has been used and he has definitely been compromised by Mrs Vella.]
Peter Gatt gave an overview (not a technical report) of the problems involved and, frankly, what he writes appears more than plausible. And yes, knowing that catastrophic land slips have happened before (even though civil engineers were – presumably – involved) confirm that the fears of Peter Gatt, Joe Magro Conti and the HAC Chairman (Dr Ganado) and its members are/ were, indeed, totally founded. The Cathedral is a heavy building, the rock underlying it seems to be fraught with problems and if there were to be so much as a little chance that the Cathedral went the other way which other building have gone before (when excavation took place very close to them) then what these people are saying seems to be fair and logical.
[Daphne – Do you know that the skyscrapers of Manhattan are largely built on reclaimed marshland, and that many of them were built in the pre-technological age? This naivety is astounding. Raphael Vassallo touched on the real cause of the problem in his column in Malta Today – yes, oddly. It’s not that it can’t be done, but that we don’t trust contractors to do the job well, because we see so many accidents happen. As though the St John’s Cathedral foundation were thinking of engaging a bunch of cowboys with no supervising team of architects and civil engineers. Have you seen the size of the excavation at the Tigne Point project – on rock that is identical and on the equal and opposite headland? I find it astonishing that you, a doctor (or so I am given to understand by what you say) would accept non-specialist opinion on a specialist matter. What Joe Magro Conti says is equal to what I say: we were trained together. And a retired lawyer, on a civil engineering matter? Please. As for Peter Gatt, take it from me, who has seen many real reports – this wasn’t one. It was the equivalent of my going out in the garden and explaining to my husband that given the nature of the ground on this side of the house we’d better not excavate for a swimming-pool (I do know a bit about rock, you see, and no, we are not excavating for a swimming-pool; it’s an example). Then my brother-in-law, who is a civil engineer, comes along and says, well, actually, everything and anything is possible – you just have to do it the right way using the right technology, and the more difficult it is then obviously, the more expensive it is (and this part is true). Do you think you live in a world where planes can whizz about in the sky but a hole can’t be safely dug in the ground? Come on.]
Some common sense at last:
http://www.timesofmalta.com.mt/articles/view/20090217/opinion/the-sleep-of-reason-brings-forth-monsters
[Daphne – Kenneth Zammit Tabona? Oh please. He’s a dear friend, but he’s the last person on earth whose opinion I would seek on any issue involving science, technology, money, or numbers.]
Daphne, it is precisely because I am a doctor (and don’t live in Lala-Land) that I think as I do. I am well aware that there is always the right way of doing things and the wrong way of going about them. But I am also aware that nothing one does (even when it’s done using the correct procedures) is without its risks.
No civil engineer will ever give you a 100% guarantee that a five-storey excavation so close to such a precious building (in my opinion anyway) as St. John’s Co-Cathedral will definitely proceed without side-effects to the said building. Even if, in this case, it is just fissures in the structure of the building and damage to the many frescos in the Cathedral, it would still be an untold tragedy, and simply NOT WORTH THE RISK TAKEN. It needn’t be the whole building toppling to the ground. Accidents have happened – contractors, as far as I know, always work under the supervision of an architect/ civil engineer (or so the law demands), who is responsible for whatever happens, also during excavation. This means that even in cases were tragedy ensued, one presumes that civil engineers were involved. Re the Midi Project at Tigne Point: there was no precious 17th-century cathedral teetering on the edge of that “hole” – or so I believe.
[Daphne – One feels like banging one’s head against the wall at this point. Do you honestly imagine that Valletta is the oldest and most beautiful city on earth, with the most precious cathedral? Do you really imagine that there is no excavation to depths greater than five storeys in the other more ancient capitals of Europe – and I don’t mean on the outskirts or in the suburbs? Where are all you people living, if not in la-la land? Do you fondly believe that all structures above and below ground everywhere in the world are built on the back of a “100 per cent guarantee”? Here’s another common factor I’ve spotted among those of you who have been objecting to the project: you don’t understand money. Do the two go hand-in-hand, I wonder? Excavations of that nature cost millions – as we know from the funds that have just been lost. In fact, a significant proportion, from what I know of building, of the expenditure would have gone on excavation. There was no ‘”precious 17th century building” on Tigne peninsula, but there were several million euros of private investment backing involved, and with that kind of capital risk, you just don’t grab a JCB and start digging. This is so unbelievable.]
“Daphne – One feels like banging one’s head against the wall at this point. Do you honestly imagine that Valletta is the oldest and most beautiful city on earth, with the most precious cathedral?”
Personally, I care more about what happens to Valletta then I would care about Manhatten or the millions coming from the EU where Malta happens to be a net contributer anyway. I know, I am terribly insular but terribly insular people also have voting rights and that include voting IVA for the EU for a greater say in issues of national importance.
[Daphne – Whether you ‘care’ about Manhattan or not is quite beside the point. This is the point: that if all of that was possible on reclaimed marshland, then so is an underground museum outside a cathedral.]
Can someone please inform me what distance to the cathedral the museum was going to be dug. A couple of decades ago I happened to be in Nuremberg when the whole mosaic and marble floor was removed for archaeological excavations some two storeys down.
You know what, the cathedral was built on wooden piles on marshy ground. It was a wonder to behold and the cathedral is still standing today. Yes good civil engineers do exist.
Many self-professed “experts” who are protesting against the underground museum project have decided to ignore the well-known fact that Valletta is full of underground passages, cellars and reservoirs, including two huge ones in front of the Co-Cathedral itself and another huge one adjacent to it in front of the Law Courts. Moreover, just under the famous Oratory, the Knights themselves dug out a huge deep crypt while there is yet another crypt under the main altar. These “empty spaces” across the city show fairly clearly what kind of rock lies under and around St. John’s. What is seen can be indicative of what cannot be seen. However, only a proper professional EIA could draw the right conclusions.
Daphne –
Go ahead and bang (your head) – I’ve been doing some pretty hard banging (of heads) on this side of cyber-space too. I’m not saying that Valletta is the oldest and most beautiful city in the world, with the most beautiful cathedral, but it’s what we’ve got – and no one can deny that it is pretty magnificent!
As far as money goes, I’m not interested in it if it means the destruction of our heritage, which I am fiercely proud of. [Daphne – You’re not interested in money, but sad to say, it’s money that pays for the maintenance and restoration of heritage buildings. And that money must come from somewhere.] I am extremely appreciative of the beautiful things/ buildings found in other countries, but I am most interested in what we have here. No risk is small enough when it comes to St. John’s Co-Cathedral, and I won’t be changing my mind about this.
The EU funds which were ear-marked for the project, I have read elsewhere, will not be lost but can be used for other projects as long as they are linked to tourist industry. One will have to wait and see which version is the correct one. [Daphne – You don’t seem to understand how the process works. The funds are not handed over for ‘tourism’. An organisation must devise a project, research it, apply for the funds – a protracted and complicated process – and then, only if the project is found to be suitable and approved for funding are the funds allocated to it. If no projects are approved within the restricted time-frame, the money is lost.]
Finally, one supposes that the Midi Consortium was backed by a hefty insurance policy to compensate for any possible damage caused by the excavation which took place at Tigne Point. No amount of insurance money will compensate for damage done to a unique and irreplaceable cathedral. [Daphne – That is most emphatically not the point, and this is precisely why I keep on underlining the fact that lack of knowledge about how money works is a common factor among those who oppose this defunct project. When I brought up the excavation at Tigne, I wasn’t speaking about damage or insurance. I was speaking about the fact that when millions of euros in private capital are invested in an excavation project for a building, that excavation has to work – because the project is dependent on it – and insurance just isn’t the point here. If the project is designed to incorporate a vast underground area which is crucial to the feasibility of the project as a whole, then the developers would have been 100% certain that it was possible before going ahead with it. Private money does not get thrown about and wasted, and it’s invested on the basis of factual reports, not of opinions.]
Daphne remarked – [One feels like banging one’s head against the wall at this point. Do you honestly imagine that Valletta is the oldest and most beautiful city on earth, with the most precious cathedral? Do you really imagine that there is no excavation to depths greater than five storeys in the other more ancient capitals of Europe – and I don’t mean on the outskirts or in the suburbs? Where are all you people living, if not in la-la land? Do you fondly believe that all structures above and below ground everywhere in the world are built on the back of a “100 per cent guarantee”?]
Exactly. One really has to ponder how possibly broad-minded and/or realistic some academics are, who still dwell in Malta.
However, Daphne, you should be humble enough to admit that Lawrence Gonzi and his closest aides have once again painfully shown where their respect limits are.
Then maintain and restore. Full stop. For once I agree with Raphael Vassallo. With our track-record, one can scarcely be as nonchalant as you are about a 5 storey deep “hole” right in front of our cathedral. [Daphne – “Our” track record? What you mean is the track record of some irresponsible developers. If one surgeon makes a hash of an operation, it won’t stop me having surgery when I need it. It will just stop me going to that surgeon. Think of all the accidents that have happened. Not exactly huge numbers, right? Now set that small number against the VAST number of development projects where nothing happened, and you’ll see that you can’t generalise.]
People in the know are saying that the funds will not be lost. Again, we will have to wait and see who is right: they or you. [Daphne – On the contrary, people “in the know”, including one person whose job it is to work on such applications (and who posted a comment on this blog) have explained quite clearly that the funds will be lost UNLESS SOMEBODY SITS DOWN AND WORKS ON A PROJECT WHICH IS ACCEPTED BY THE APPROVING BODY. Devising and working on a project is a hugely expensive and time-consuming exercise in itself. So unless some government organisation gets off its butt and goes through all this again, it’s just not going to happen. I have to point out that the recent experience would have served to demoralise and demotivate. There’s not much incentive for slogging away at a proposal only to have it shot down like this – and on top of all that, to be exposed to demands for your resignation. Would you bother? I wouldn’t. Now you know why hardly anything gets done here and why so much capital is being taken out of the country to be invested elsewhere.]
I am hardly interested in what private investors do with their money (as long as it does not ruin what is left of our island). They can dig a hole from here to Catania for all I care. Good luck to them. [Daphne – You should take an interest because ultimately, it affects your own life and income, either positively or negatively.]
[Daphne – “Our” track record? What you mean is the track record of some irresponsible developers. If one surgeon makes a hash of an operation, it won’t stop me having surgery when I need it. It will just stop me going to that surgeon. Think of all the accidents that have happened. Not exactly huge numbers, right? Now set that small number against the VAST number of development projects where nothing happened, and you’ll see that you can’t generalise.]
No, I don’t – I mean OUR TRACK RECORD. Just look at the canopy which has recently been erected over Hagar Qim and you’ll know what I mean. It’s atrocious – and I mean atrocious. Look at the centre which has been built in the vicinity. It’s unsightly. It dwarfs the temples and makes them look insignificant. Look at what happened to the horrible canopy with the first gust of wind – you definitely know what happened. Were experts and civil engineers involved? – I think so. Cringe.
[Daphne – I am so glad you brought that up. I raised the issue myself in response to another FAA supporter on this blog: where in God’s name was the FAA when that was built? And I answered my own question: the horizons of the FAA do not extend beyond issues which capture the imagination – such as it is – of ABC1 voters from Sliema and suchlike. They don’t care about the temples and barely know where they are. They can’t be romanticised with tales of infidels and Christians.]
It’s two days since your emailed questions to Peter Gatt. Two days in cyberspace are an eternity. The deafening silence from Mr Gatt is worrying. I would have thought he would be eager to recover his reputation.
Daphne,
I really cannot answer you re where FAA was in the case of Hagar Qim – in no way am I part of the foundation. If I were, I would have kicked up hell about it. But on the other hand, where was everybody else? The experts? MEPA? How could they have allowed such an eye-sore to be erected near and over our magnificent temple? Is Imnajdra going to be afforded the same fate?