The presence of Greens on Local Councils is aimed at mitigating partisan pique and at the same time giving voice to a community on issues which have remained on the backburner despite the obvious harm to all residents, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Dr Harry Vassallo said in Paola yesterday.
“Air pollution in Paola should be a major issue for the Paola Local Council; the locality suffers very greatly because it is a traffic corridor and because it is directly in the path of emissions from Marsa Power station and the incinerator at Alberttown,” Dr Vassallo said.
He said that Paola and Marsa residents may not be aware that the proponents of the incinerator at Alberttown justified their project because of the existing air quality in the area. Because it is bad, they can keep it bad forever.
“Our presence for the first time in the Paola Local Council will mean that all Paola residents will be able to re-examine this issue and no longer accept that they are necessarily destined to live in an area of poor air quality,” Dr Vassallo said.
Our candidate in Paola is new to the Greens but the Greens are not new to the problems that Paola residents are facing, Dr Vassallo said.
AD’s chairman said they had no problem at all in bringing their experience to the service of a locality such as this and combining their efforts on a national level to that of such a locality.
“Every housewife in Paola knows about the extreme levels of air pollution because she notices every time she cleans her house or collects her laundry. With the Greens on the Council this issue will begin to be addressed with all the resources at our disposal, in Paola, in Malta and in Brussels,” Dr Vassallo said.
“There is no reason why the residents of localities which have suffered from high levels of pollution for many years must accept to suffer the harm for the rest of their lives,” Martin Brincat, AD candidate for the Paola local council said.
“Paola should be a leader in binding government to a timetable for the decommissioning of Marsa Power Station, to force all developments such as the Marsa incinerator to the very highest air quality standards. Paola was not destined to suffer air pollution for ever. It has every right to demand that it becomes the envy of other localities. The country should be told that in Paola residents have the right to bring up their children as well as anybody else,” Mr Brincat said
Dr Vassallo said that on the local council, its coucillor would work to secure a rebate on electricity for as long as the Marsa Power Station continues to pollute people’s homes.