Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/257374
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 2014 10 News 'All for gas… outside our harbour' Marsaxlokk mayor Edric Micallef hints at meeting the Labour government midway on accepting gas storage inside the harbour, but only under a guarantee that the vessel will eventually be relocated further outside JAMES DEBONO LABOUR mayor Edric Micallef is taking a remarkably non-partisan stance by demanding the relocation of Delimara's LNG-storage vessel outside the Marsaxlokk harbour. The vessel is crucial to the new 200MW power station that will run on natural gas, serving as a floating gas terminal inside the harbour. But Micallef says the Marsaxlokk local council is not changing its stand under a new government: "We are behaving in exactly the same way as we acted when the previous administration proposed the BWSC plant. On both occasions the govern- ment and Enemalta presented their proposals and submitted their stud- ies, and on both occasions we have given our feedback after consulting technical experts." So far satisfied with the way public consultation is taking place, Micallef insists that the LNG vessel must be relocated further offshore to ensure greater peace of mind for Marsax- lokk people. "When the BWSC power station was discussed, the council insisted that the plant should work on diesel and not heavy fuel oil, because it was less polluting. Now we are discussing natural gas, the cleanest of all fuels. It's the top-notch option. And we want the shift to take place in the shortest time possible," he says. "Although there could be a percep- tion that the process is being fast- tracked to meet the government's political deadlines, no step in the planning and impact assessment process is being bypassed. This is very positive," he says of the way the public consultation is taking place. Stakeholders were invited in July 2013 to submit their proposals for the terms of reference of an environ- mental impact assessment, before the successful bidder for the LNG plant was even chosen. "We made it clear that our preference was for the storage to be located on a ship and not on tanks in Delimara, as sug- gested by Labour before the election when the proposal was attacked by the PN." Micallef says the council wants the offshore storage facility to be tempo- rary. "Ultimately we would like the power station to be connected to a pipeline which supplies us with nat- ural gas from somewhere else." He points out that land-based tanks are not as easily removable, saying that the liquid petroleum gas tanks in Qajjenza are still there even if operations have been transferred to Benghajsa. "There is a tendency in the country not to plan ahead. Clearly an offshore plant is easier to decommission as this would simply mean that the ship would depart for somewhere else. There would be no need to get rid of the gas tanks." In the latest plans, the ElectroGas vessel will be located further ashore to a jetty and connected with a pipe- line to the regasification plant, but still located in the Marsaxlokk bay. The council wants the ship to be anchored further offshore outside the harbour. "In all our reports we insisted on the tanker being located further offshore. We still want it out- side the port," Micallef says. However the council is ready to consider positioning the vessel in the Marsaxlokk bay as a temporary solu- tion, until plans are made to relocate it outside the harbour. Micallef makes it clear that the council would only be ready to ac- cept this temporary solution if risk assessment studies show this is as a safe option, and if the power station is not built in a way that would make the relocation impossible. "That is why the relocation outside the port should be considered in current plans. We do not want to end up being told relocation is impossible because the infrastructure does not permit it," Micallef says. One of the possible options is to locate the vessel on the other side of the Delimara bay and connect it to the plant through a pipeline passing through Hofra iz-Zghira, which is al- ready connected to the plant through a tunnel used for the plant's cooling system. Micallef however concedes that residents want the switch to gas to take place as soon as possible, and that he does not want to prolong the process. "That's why we are ready to accept a temporary loca- tion of the FSU in the harbour until arrangements are made to relocate it outside the harbour." But he will turn down the tempo- rary solution if studies show this is not safe. The major risk is the re- mote possibility of the dispersion of a cold vapour cloud from the FSU. Micallef insists that studies should address the worst possible scenario. "We are not comforted by state- ments that an accident can happen only once in 10,000 years. It could be any day between tomorrow and 10,000 years from now. It could be tomorrow." While the council's technical re- port on this risk is based on mete- orological data from Cartagena in Spain and not in weather conditions in Marsaxlokk, Micallef says he is partly satisfied by a reply from EIA coordinator Paul Gauci, that local data was used to assess the stabil- ity of weather conditions. "This is how things should we done… we ask questions made by our experts and we get answers." So if the council is satisfied to have a ship safely located within the harbour, why would it insist on its further relocation offshore? Micallef says it's the visual impact of the ship in the harbour, a fact clearly pointed out by the EIA with regards to the dramatic impact on the landscape. But Enemalta also does not have the luxury of locating the storage facility outside the port, which can compromise security of supply because of bad weather. Micallef however says that the energy cor- poration must be more sensitive to Marsaxlokk residents' requests. "If they have studies showing that lo- cating the ship further offshore is not possible or feasible, they should publish them. We will not be satis- fied until a proper study is conduct- ed to assess the possibility of relo- cating the ship further offshore." MEPA decides whether to al- low Enemalta continue to run its BWSC turbines on heavy fuel oil in March: Micallef says the council has already informed energy min- ister Konrad Mizzi it will demand the switch from HFO to diesel until the entire Delimara plant switches to LNG. "Mizzi told me it will create fi- nancial difficulties as diesel is more expensive than HFO. I understand the financial concerns on the state of Enemalta, but as a council we have to demand the best option for our residents," Micallef says. He adds that there is a notable difference between the present situation to that under the previ- ous administration. "At that stage the choice was between HFO and diesel, and they opted for HFO. I have to recognise that the present government is working on building a plant fuelled by natural gas which is even better." The mayor says the government now intends to present a series of infrastructural projects for the Marsaxlokk community as com- munity compensation for having been exposed to the power station for the past two decades, an idea first discussed during a Cabinet meeting held in Marsxlokk in July. Micallef praises Konrad Mizzi for taking a prominent role in push- ing these plans, among them a roundabout to slow down incom- ing traffic, and another "plan- ning gain" project in the form of a long-promised national park at Delimara. jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt Edric Micallef