Government breaks the law by dumping Marsa power station waste two miles off Grand Harbour breakwater
A print-out of an email from Transport Malta’s Ports and Yachting Directorate to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, dated 3 March, has been leaked to this website. The text is as follows.
To whom it may concern,
Is MEPA aware of the ongoing operations at the ex Malta Shipbuilding (Quay Wall 5), where barges are being loaded with construction material from the dismantling of the Marsa Power Station and being discharged at spoil grounds two miles off the breakwater?
Regards,
(name and contact details redacted)
Ports and Yachting Directorate
Transport Malta
This exposes the government’s bald lie when it announced that the Marsa power station, despite being shut down, would be “kept on cold standby” just in case it is needed in an emergency situation.
It is not being kept on cold standby; it is being dismantled. The obscenity of the lie is compounded by the fact that the dismantling and dumping has been going on since last October at least, when the press were actually taken on a tour and told about it.
This dismantling and dumping is taking place even though the MEPA has yet to give the green light. Even when the MEPA go-ahead is given as expected in mid-April, dismantling work cannot begin at law before the planning authority issues what is known as an Integrated Pollution Prevention Control permit. This is necessary because the work involves major pollutants and contaminated waste.
The waste, as this email shows, is being dumped at sea two miles out from the Grand Harbour breakwater, in breach of the law.