Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/712521
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 AUGUST 2016 Opinion Where are Labour's environmental credentials now? do not habitually vote Labour in every election. They're like the 'tal- ambjent' brigade… on the other side of an invisible barrier called 'political prejudice'. So it's perfectly OK to just carry on shitting all over them, as Labour governments habitually used to do in the 1980s. Right, Glenn? But the real problem lies elsewhere. On at least one level, Glenn Bedingfield is perfectly right: the government he represents cannot be described as 'environmentalist' by any stretch of the imagination. It has defecated more copiously on Malta's environment in the past three years alone, than any preceding government in the past 25. We saw this in the way Muscat very generously sold a tract of virgin, unspoilt land for a pittance… thereby automatically devaluing the entire natural landscape, and reducing it to an accessory for his own (mostly short- sighted) economic vision. Much more seriously, Muscat's government even tinkered with the most sensitive laws and regulations that exist to protect the environment. It butchered the local plans, in order to justif y any ODZ project which is 'in the national interest' (translation: in the interest of the government of the day). As a result of this gross act of irresponsibility, any future government can now justif y any public project – no matter how environmentally unsound – by simply overriding all legal obstacles at will. It's 'in the national interest', remember? So all laws are automatically suspended to allow for the project to go ahead… Not content with that, Joseph Muscat also split the twin roles of the authority formerly known as 'MEPA': creating an 'Environment Resources Authority' that has just proved spectacularly toothless in every sense of the word. So much so, it didn't even send a representative to last Thursday's PA meeting, and therefore didn't actually cast a vote either way. That's some dedication to protecting the environment, you know. One of the most pivotal environmental issues we have ever seen gets to be discussed in a public forum… and there isn't even a representative of the 'Environmental Protection Directorate' at the discussion table. One can only conclude that this was the specific intention behind the 'demerger' in the first place. Muscat has created a situation where planning has been divested of any environmental considerations whatsoever. Such issues are no longer even discussed, when taking decisions of unprecedented environmental magnitude. In one fell swoop, he has simply turned the clock back to a time when projects were approved directly by the government, with no functional checks and balances of any kind. And now, we even have it straight from the horse's mouth. Joseph Muscat's spokesman has emphatically confirmed that 'environmentalists' and 'Labourites' are two completely different animals, not to be confused in any way or under any circumstances. You know, just in case his government's miserable environmental track record, on its own, was insufficient to make the same point… Meanwhile, for the umpteenth time we are left to pick up the pieces, after yet another government's environmental credentials imploded before our eyes. And this time round, I greatly fear there won't be very much left of our country to actually piece back together again, once all the fragments are duly picked up. That is why I wasn't exaggerating when I said that this government has done more damage to the environment than any other Maltese government since independence. It is not the repercussions of any individual project we now have to worry about; it is the opening of f loodgates that can never realistically be shut again. I'll leave it to the experts to explain why the decision to build a 38-storey tower, in the most densely congested part of a tiny country which lacks even a rudimentary system of mass transportation, is a bad idea. It is, after all, up to architects, engineers, urban planners and environmentalists to point out such things… and it's not as though they've been particularly quiet, either. But however much they scream and shout, we all know that authorities like the PA will never listen to expert advice. No, not even when it commissions the experts itself. Apart from the Sliema Townsquare project, the Planning Authority also approved four high-rise buildings in Mriehel… even though the developers provided less than two-thirds the number of parking spaces necessitated by the Traffic Impact Assessment. Sort of raises the question of why they even bothered commissioning a Traffic Impact Assessment report, when they very clearly didn't give a hoot about its findings. The TIA specified that this gargantuan project would require 1,500 parking spaces… so the PA naturally approved the application, even though it only provides for just over 1,000. This same dogged insistence on ignoring all expert advice characterises every last aspect of both the Mriehel and Sliema decisions. In the latter case, an expert geologist even warned that the Sliema bedrock was simply not strong enough to support such a massive structure. To which the PA promptly responded: Who cares? The only important thing here is that we rubberstamp a policy to approve any application filed by any major political party donor (actual or potential). Whatever happens after that is no longer our concern… no, not even if the entire edifice comes crashing down about Sliema's ears (as it very well might). And this, ultimately, is the only element of consistency to be discerned any where in all this mess. As with all other issues, we have consistently put the cart before the horse: hastily approving multiple high-rise buildings, before finalising anything resembling a 'masterplan' to guide and oversee the development of high-rise. If this is the way we are going to approach decision-taking at such a sensitive level – f lying in the face of all warnings: not just structural and infrastructural, but even economic – the next major project to be approved by the PA may as well just be a giant tombstone with the words: 'Here lies Malta, buried under the rubble of its own short-sightedness and greed. 1964-2016. RIP' Oh wait, maybe that was the last one it approved… either way, it doesn't really matter much. We will all be buried soon enough any way… Raphael Vassallo It is not the repercussions of any individual project we now have to worry about; it is the opening of floodgates that can never realistically be shut again