An illegal scrapyard, situated just 300 metres away from the prehistoric settlements of Borg in-Nadur and Ghar Dalam in Birzebbuga, continues to operate while its owner persists with delaying tactics by registering appeal after appeal against enforcement notices issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA).

There is, however light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel. Next week, after 14 years of the process dragging endlessly on with interspersing and inexplicable delays, the MEPA appeals board is set to hear the case once again, when it is hoped the scrapyard’s owner will finally be held accountable for decades of environmental degradation and his blatant flouting of the law.

Not only do the towers of scrap metal and heaps of disused buses continue to scar one of the most beautiful valleys of the south of Malta, Wied Zembaq, noise pollution from metal compressors, which start early in the morning, is also taking its toll on residents living within earshot of the illegal operations.

The site is extremely sensitive. It lies in a Rural Conservation Area as well as an Area of Ecological Value and a Site of Scientific Importance given its rare species and unique geomorphology.

The operations also threaten what has been identified as an important archaeological area, with Wied Zembaq and its environs having been designated as a Heritage Park in the Marsaxlokk Bay Local Plan.

Making matters worse, the scrapyard has never and still does not hold any of the necessary permits or licences for scrapping activities.

In 2004 MEPA had judged the operations “represent unacceptable urban development in the countryside” when it dismissed the last application for the development of the site as a scrapyard, which it only did after decades of operations.

But despite a raft of negative findings issued in 2004, MEPA has allowed the abusive scrapyard to continue operations unhindered for a further two-and-a-half years pending next week’s hearing.

In the meantime, the scrapyard’s owner, a certain Salvu Cutajar, has managed to consistently delay MEPA enforcement notices for the last 14 years and continues operating the illegal scrapyard.

The first enforcement notice from MEPA had been filed 14 years ago, in 1993, and accused the site’s owner of changing the land into a scrapyard and building a garage without a permit.

In 2004, MEPA’s Planning Directorate refused the owner’s development application on a number of grounds. Firstly, it resulted that although the owner claimed scrapping activities had been taking place at the site for the last 50 years, the site had never been licensed as a scrapyard, even though the applicant himself has a licence to import and export scrap. When asked to provide proof in the form of a permit or licence showing the activity has been ongoing for as long as was being claimed, all MEPA received was a declaration from the mother company, The Hompesch Processing Co. Ltd, and a copy of the tonnage of scrap exported in 1994.

While the owner was also asked to substantiate the claim the scrapyard had over the last decades been awarded government contracts for the collection of scrap, no proof of such tenders had been forthcoming from the owner.

More recently, however, the scrapyard is said to have won contracts from the Malta Transport Authority for the scrapping of old buses as well as another contract from the Drydocks for the disposal of a large volume of scrap metal.

In 2004, MEPA had found, when turning down the owner’s development application, that, “The direct conflict between the activity taking place and the site upon which it is being carried out cannot be emphasised more. The activity is purely industrial and as such should be located in an industrial zone, and on the other hand the site is designated as a Rural Conservation Area and in this sense should be protected from any harmful impacts.”

MEPA also pointed out that the likely impacts are physical overspill into the valley, leakages through the ground, which are made worse by the presence of chrome, and visual impact.

A permit application and appeal against a MEPA enforcement notice was filed in 1994, but it wasn’t until 10 years later, in 2004, that the appeal was dismissed. Arguing the case in 1996 for the scrapyard owner was architect Anton Zammit and lawyer Raphael Fenech Adami.

The development permit was refused by MEPA a year later in 2005. Another enforcement action was registered in 2005, which was, in turn, appealed once more by the owner.

MEPA is currently legalising certain scrapyards that were operating before 1 May 2004 and which do not have a valid Waste Management Permit. The scrapyard in Wied Zembaq, however, would not qualify for such standing given the criteria that a valid development permit prior to 1 May 2004 must have covered the site and operations in question – a proviso the operation in question clearly does not meet.