From Mr E.A. Mallia

Allow me a little gallows humour on the matter.

If Joe Portelli’s Nadur farmers (TMIS, 16 September) “drink that water and cook with it– water that has almost three times the allowed content of nitrates – they would be better advised to drop their opposition to the new cemetery and book a number of “plots” there.

The double irony is that their activities are most probably the source of the elevated nitrate content in the spring water; and that the Nadur dead can hardly contribute anything worse, other than hydrocarbon leaks from the hearses, of the sort one sees in every place where cars are parked.

But all this apart, as the whole process can only be described as twisted – with the case officer deciding that the proposal was too gross to even merit an EIA and some MEPA board then overruling him and forgetting about an EIA – the Gozo Curia should have had a residual self-respect and refused to act in the circumstances. Instead, it went ahead behind a smokescreen of complaints of unfair treatment by MEPA.

It does not seem to have crossed its collective mind that the Cittadella car park and the Lourdes-of-the-Mediterranean proposal for Ta’ Pinu may be somewhat over the top.

E. A. Mallia,

ATTARD