Buqana Petrol Station

With reference to the letter by Ms. Sylvana Debono, MEPA PRO, re. the Buqana petrol station (Times 17th September), Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA)  appreciates that petrol stations should be moved out of residential areas but relocation to areas of scenic beauty should not be an option.

Ms Debono cites three parameters in such relocations; planning, transport safety and environment.  The previous petrol station planned further up this same road was refused partly due to the danger it would pose to the heavy traffic on this main artery. Since then, the road has become, even busier. As for environmental considerations, this location should have been refused outright on the grounds of the negative impact that a petrol station with canopy, car wash, garage and shop will have to both the beautiful landscape beneath Mdina, as well as the risk it would pose to the nation’s water resources.  As for planning, there are no less than four other petrol stations within a kilometre of this one, so what sort of planning is this?

The granting of this permit once again calls into question the reliability of MEPA’s processing of permits. As Ms. Debono states, “The applicant was even requested to carry out a site selection exercise”.  By a strange coincidence these site selection exercises always seem to favour the site that happens to belong to the applicant!  How can one expect otherwise? This just confirms what FAA has maintained about the shortcomings of our Environment Impact Assessment regulations.

The area where the petrol station will be erected. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier.

Ms. Debono mentions that the backdrop of the petrol  station will be the football stadium and a planned convention centre.  As the photo indicates, this site is some distance from the football stadium, slap bang in the middle of fields and the backdrop quoted by Ms Debono will only be seen if one happens to be standing in a field opposite the petrol station, which is rarely the case.  According to MEPA’s website, the conference centre is no certainty as a permit has not yet been granted, or is this another case of foregone conclusions? When applicants or objectors refer to other projects planned in the  vicinity, they are summarily told that MEPA can only decide on a case-by-case basis. It seems that all applicants are equal, but some are more equal than others.

With reference to the other application for a petrol station nearby which was refused, it would seem logical that if this was refused in the past, the introduction of “28 pieces of national and EU legislation” mentioned by Ms Debono would make it harder, and not easier, to build a petrol station over an acquifer - not least because the aquifer is now protected by the EU Water Framework Directive.  In fact, it is to be noted that the previously-refused petrol station continued to be adjudicated through the Appeal process and the Auditor’s Office until February 2007.  As far as we are informed, no new policies pertinent to these cases have been issued since February 2007, therefore the statement of MEPA Board member Dr. Joe Brincat who said “This is a case of two weights and two measures, what is sauce for the goose, should be sauce for the gander” still stands.

The “mitigation measures and precautions resultant from the EIA” do not address the potential risk to public health of carcinogenic hydrocarbons leaking from the underground fuel storage tanks and ending in our potable water supply, undetected for months or years on end. MEPA should be aware that Malta lies in a tectonic zone, and that small ground movements may lead to damages to the fuel tanks. The least one would have expected would be that MEPA would have dismissed this site on the basis of its high hydrological sensitivity as the area is surrounded by WSC’s water production sources.

These issues were not only raised by FAA but also by Dr. Louis Cassar, the ecological expert on the MEPA Board, who voiced serious doubts about the mitigation measures being able to cope with the risk of major spills and in fact voted against the project.

We therefore reiterate that while the relocation of fuel stations away from habitation is a positive step, removing a problem from one area only to create worse problems in another, and in the process ruining the landscape and threatening the nation’s source of drinking water is certainly not the answer.

FAA
Septembet 2007