The European Commission has thrown cold water on claims made by the Department of Information in relation to the six sites identified by The Malta Independent on Sunday as not having met with European Union minimum thresholds on bathing water cleanliness.

The Commission has confirmed that the sites in question failed EU criteria not because they were tested insufficiently, as claimed by the DOI, but because they had been tested properly and had failed to meet the EU’s physico-chemical parameters.

The confirmation comes after the DOI, on behalf of the Public Health Department – which is responsible for monitoring bathing water microbiological parameters, and Mepa – which monitors the physico-chemical parameters, last week attempted to explain its way out of the EC’s Bathing Water Report’s uncomplimentary findings.

In confirmation with The Malta Independent on Sunday this week, the Commission explained that the six popular bathing sites reported by this newspaper as having fallen short of the EU’s bathing water quality standards have been classified as such due to excessive levels of surface active substances and mineral oils – and not because they were insufficiently monitored.

The six sites are: Sliema’s Exiles and Ghar id-Dud beaches, the left-hand side of St George’s Bay, the right-hand side of Xlendi Bay, the area near the Marsascala water polo pitch and the beach at the bottom of Wilga Street, Paceville.

In its statement, the DOI had explained that the six sites were labelled “non-conforming” because they were insufficiently sampled, and not because the samples failed to meet the EU’s criteria.

The DOI had explained: "For the six sites classified in the EU Bathing Water Report as non-conforming, this was due to the fact that although these sites were eventually monitored… they were not monitored to the required frequency and thus they have been classified as non-confirming."

The statement jarred completely with the EC's report, which made a clear distinction between sites that were not monitored sufficiently - 46 of Malta's 87 sites - and those that had not met with EU minimum thresholds when tested.

The Commission explained: "Please note that all six sites were sufficiently sampled for all five parameters considered by the Commission. They however all failed to reach the water quality standards for at least one of the five parameters."

Going into further detail, the Commission explained how the Marsascala site was non-compliant in terms of both mineral oils and surface active substances; Xlendi Bay was non compliant for the mineral oils parameter alone; while St George's Bay, Exiles and Ghar id-Dud in Sliema and Paceville's beach at the end of Wilga Street all failed tests for surface active substances.

Misinterpreting a misinterpretation

Additionally, clarifications sought from the Commission by this newspaper have also shown that, with respect to Mepa's failure to test or submit data for 46 of the 87 sites it was supposed to have monitored over the 2005 bathing season, Mepa's claims to have misinterpreted the bathing water directive simply do not hold water.

While the DOI explains that all 87 of the bathing sites Malta was obliged to monitor by the EU's bathing water directive, 76/160/EEC, were monitored for microbiological parameters at twice the required frequency by the Public Health Department, Mepa had failed to monitor 46 of the sites for physico-chemical parameters because of an "erroneous interpretation" of the directive.

The DOI went on to explain how Mepa had implemented a provision under the directive of "reduced frequency which the new Member States may only adopt this provision after submitting three consecutive years of data to the DG Environment".

The three consecutive year explanation, however, beggars belief, considering the fact that during the 2005 bathing season Malta had been an EU member for just one bathing season and that Malta failed to provide any data for the 2004 bathing season.

According to the Commission: "For new Member States the first bathing season to consider was 2004, i.e. the first season after accession to the EU".

At any rate, it seems that Mepa had also misinterpreted its misinterpretation. A reduction of frequency is, indeed, foreseen under the current Directive 76/160/EEC, but only after two, not three, years of satisfactory data.

The Commission explains, "This (provision) means that after two years of full and consecutive compliance with the imperative values a Member State may reduce the sampling frequency by a factor of two, i.e., fortnightly sampling will be replaced by sampling every four weeks, except for the required sample taken 15 days before the start of the bathing season."

Directive 76/160/EC, however, is being phased out in favour of a new directive, 2006/7/EC, which came into force in March this year, long after the 2005 bathing season - when the Mepa tests were meant to have been carried out - had drawn to an close. The new directive will have to be transposed by March 2008 and will be definitely phased out at the end of 2014.

Even if Mepa had been mistakenly reading a draft of the new directive as it prepared for the 2005 bathing season, the Commission stresses that the new directive "does not foresee a reduction of frequency".