The Malta Water Association (MWA) – L-Assocjazzoni Maltija Ghall-Ilma - has decided to cease operations on World Water Day 2019, exactly 8 years after it was set up. The MWA is Malta’s only NGO focused exclusively on water.

The Association was founded in March 2011 with the specific objective “To make Water Everybody’s Business”, in other words, to communicate, educate, develop knowledge and raise public awareness on the sustainable management of Malta’s scarce and fast-depleting natural water resources.    

Since its formation, the MWA lobbied extensively for the protection of Malta’s water reserves, particularly groundwater, which is under threat from over-pumping and from contamination. It has done this by producing and issuing a number of position papers on various aspects of the subject, by participating in meetings with government and EU officials, by participating in discussions on TV and radio programmes, by meeting ministers and politicians to discuss policy, by giving talks to interested groups, and by submitting proposals to political parties’ electoral manifestos (in 2013 and in 2017), among others. 

However, it was increasingly being felt among the executive and the membership base of the Association that it was fighting a losing battle, with sustainability only being given lip service by the political classes. 

Indeed, in 2019, six years after the three main political parties (PL, PN, AD) promised to deliver a National Water Management Plan as a priority in their electoral manifesto, the country still does not have a Plan, the association said. 

Meanwhile, multi-million Euro water projects were limited in scope and failed to address the serious issues of water over-abstraction and contamination; private extraction by boreholes remains rampant, uncontrolled and not charged (i.e. free, resulting in abuse); water saving campaigns were largely inexistent and/or sporadic, and water planning in major projects largely inexistent. Even centuries-old legislation that requires new buildings to have rainwater cisterns is being blatantly ignored, with enforcement inexistent – with the result that Malta now has no emergency reserve of fresh water in buildings, and experiences flooding and surcharging of sewers with each storm event. A mis-directed multi-million Euro flood relief project has no capability to harness stormwater, and conveys millions of cubic metres of this fresh water resource directly to sea.

Agricultural policy, which needs to be radically revamped and integrated with a National Water Plan, currently favours an increase in irrigation (even in the dry summer months), resulting in massive abstraction of groundwater – with the consequence of the abstracted groundwater becoming more saline, to the detriment of the farmers themselves, and the country in general. Moreover, lack of controls in the application of fertilizer by farmers to fields has resulted in groundwater being rendered as unfit for potable use through contamination by nitrate. This is resulting in Malta becoming increasing dependent on expensive Reverse Osmosis which inherently has a number of vulnerabilities and poses a number of risks.  While, New Water (the production of 2nd class water from sewage) is a welcome development and one which the MWA has campaigned for, it does not solve the over exploitation of ground water, nor the need for expensive reverse osmosis water.

Failure by Malta’s politicians to address the above will result in future generations having to pay massive fines (to the EU, for not restoring aquifers to a Good Status by the established deadlines) and facing a future without affordable and strategically-important fresh water resources. Additionally, as this century progresses, Malta faces hotter and more arid scenarios related to Climate Change, which will exacerbate water demands on the country. To this one should add the pressures of a planned increase in population, which will put additional pressure on the alreadystressed finite water resources.

However, despite our repeated warnings and suggestions and despite these very real threats, with deep regret, we can say that the situation has gone from bad to worse and we do not see the political commitment and courage to address the damage that is being done to our very existence.  

In conclusion, the association thanked all those interested individuals who, as volunteers, contributed time and effort in an effort to make a difference.