Over the past years, Malta has spent millions and millions to keep the sea clean. As a result, the sea became clean just a couple of years ago and Malta’s beaches began to be acclaimed as having the Blue Flag. We all noticed the sea was noticeably clean.

Then this year we started to find problems again. This time,  the problems are coming from the feed given to fish in the fish farms.

Let us review the situation.

Up to some years ago, Malta used to dump its organic waste in the sea mainly from the huge plant at Xghajra.

The former government together with massive EU funds built three water purifying stations at Xghajra, Anchor Bay and in Gozo.

Despite the huge expenditure, things were not so easy to solve. It was found later that farmers used to dump animal waste in the drainage system which as a result got clogged up.

Monitoring and enforcement somehow brought the situation under control. As a result, the sea was markedly cleaner and anyone could see that. Usually, by this time of the year we would all be full of sores as a result of bays not having been sufficiently cleaned and the sea being somewhat polluted.

But now, as said earlier, this year a new source of pollution was noted and it was tracked down to the effluent from fish farms.

These enormous cages house fish, such as tuna, which are bred in captivity from young till they are killed around October. Such huge animals – there could be some 600 of them in one cage only – need huge amounts of feed and it is this plus the excreta of the tuna themselves that pollutes especially when the currents deposit them in the bays and beaches.

As anyone can see, there are groups of fish farms to the North and also to the South of Malta. There was a plan, some years ago, to group them all together and relocate them further out to sea and to the South but nothing seems to have come of that plan. Certainly, the operation of fish farms requires frequent transport from the base station to the farms and it is not feasible to have to travel say one and a half hours just to get to the tuna pen.

Besides, we may think the wide open sea is a sort of free area but in fact it is nothing of the sort. There are countless operations going on, for instance oil bunkering and these operations need their own space in the big wide sea.

The situation, in short, is just like what we get inside the Grand Harbour where multiple uses act against each other – yachting vs dockyard, tourist uses vs industrial. To govern is to strike a balance, which is not always easy, to ensure fairness and to ensure that the laws are observed.

The fact that the sea is getting polluted once again shows that something has gone wrong. It is up to the State to ensure that the laws are observed and that the citizens get the clean seas they have a right to.