Part of the rubble wall and paving at the new belvedere above the Blue Grotto has not yet been cleaned up from the used oil spilled in the area by vandals three weeks ago, as “the chemicals used to remove it did not work,” a spokesperson from the Resources and Infrastructure Ministry told The Malta Independent yesterday.
Workers from the ministry, who immediately began the cleaning up process following the attack on 26 March, have been facing difficulties as the type of chemicals used have not been effective and alternative methods will need to be found.
The ministry spokesperson said workers were trying to find different chemicals that will have the least negative impact on the stone.
The belvedere was inaugurated last December following an investment of about Lm500,000 and the attack on it was just one of a string of other vandal attacks during the past months.
During March and April alone, vandals also targeted the Ghadira Nature Reserve, a bus shelter, a farmhouse and a stretch of rubble wall close to the Neolithic temples of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, limits of Qrendi.
Spent oil was also spilled along a rocky beach next to Wignacourt Tower in St Paul’s Bay.
Another vandal attack, which took place in January, saw a bring-in site in Qormi being set on fire.
While the rocky beach has been cleaned completely, oil spilled in the nature reserve on 21 March is said to have had a negative impact on migrant birds and their breeding species.
BirdLife said the huge amount of oil spilled showed that the vandalism was much more than just a simple act involving a couple of people throwing a few bottles over the fence surrounding the nature reserve.
There was obviously a serious level of forethought and planning involved, with oil being poured into strategic locations where it would cause the most damage to the fragile ecosystem, stated BirdLife.
Contacted by The Malta Independent yesterday, BirdLife Malta Conservation Manager André Raine said the oil has now been cleaned up completely, although a few birds were still found dead as a result of the spillage.
The operation took quite a while to get started and the oil had plenty of time to disrupt the wetland ecosystem, with toxic chemicals possibly spreading into the water and sinking into the sediment, causing long-term effects on the ecosystem.
When BirdLife first contacted the Environment and Rural Affairs Ministry and the rapid response team that operates under the Tourism and Culture Ministry, due to lack of human resources, the team could only provide “oil towels to mop up the spill.”
The Ghadira Nature Reserve is designated as an International Ramsar Wetland Site and is also a Special Protection Area and a Special Area for Conservation, making it a Natura 2000 site under EU legislation.
This attack was followed by vandalism in an area close to the Neolithic temples, just two days later. Graffiti were sprayed on a bus shelter, farmhouse and a stretch of rubble wall.
When asked about the financial cost of cleaning up the effects of vandalism, such as the ones that took place over the past months, the spokesperson from the Resources and Infrastruc-ture Ministry said that while the cost of chemicals used for cleaning up was often nominal, labour costs could be much higher.
In fact, the situation at the belvedere above the Blue Grotto was undoubtedly proving to be very costly from this point of view, while the situation at the nature reserve may be even worse, both from a financial, as well as environmental point of view, the spokesman said.