From E. A. Mallia

My first reaction on reading Ing. A. Riolo’s letter (TMIS, 14 September) was that the Malta Resources Authority had been unfairly treated by unnamed (but easily identifiable) “experts” quoted by Francesca Vella (TMIS, 7 September). That feeling subsided somewhat on a second reading and suffered further erosion on re-looking at the “background” material cited by Ing. Riolo; but it evaporated completely after re-reading Francesca Vella’s article in The Malta Independent of 22 September 2006.

This last was written just after MRA published a call for expressions of interest to set up a deep-water wind farm of 75MW-100MW capacity. The call carried clear implications. The most relevant was that Ing. Riolo’s reference to consultants Mott Macdonald having “clearly identified Sikka il-Bajda as the preferred option for an offshore wind farm in relatively (sic) shallow water” obscures the rejection of this technology in favour of a deep-water technology still in the development stage. On the other hand, the present mention of “a high level statement of the advantages and disadvantages of [Sikka l-Bajda] (and others)” is a smokescreen to cover the sudden retreat from deep to shallow water sites – hardly a harbinger of sound scientific evaluations. Even more – this “high level statement”, apart from lacking any “high level” basis such as measured wind speeds, actually dismissed Sikka l-Bajda as a marginal site, which “cannot be considered to gain the main benefits of moving a wind farm development offshore”. Il-Munxar ta’ San Tumas was not specifically mentioned as “the second preferred option”; it was simply included in a list of close off-shore sites, with a potential approaching that of Sikka il-Bajda and a poorer wind resource. Incidentally, MM concluded that “none of the (offshore) locations identified (were) likely to be more economical than onshore locations”. One final point: for reasons unknown, no off-shore sites to the north of Gozo, which have a far superior wind resource to Sikka il-Bajda, were considered by MRA.

The last part of Ing. Riolo’s letter creates further confusion by lumping shallow water sites with “areas for offshore wind farm development in Maltese territorial waters”. The latter are now on the back burner. The former have been resuscitated however, which is why Ing. Riolo refers to “a preliminary consultation covering the major public entities”. This was conducted through a questionnaire in early 2005, but the results have now come to life again in the re-discovery of shallow water areas that many had sworn do not exist around the Maltese Islands. What “highest standards” were involved in simply noting down objections, some of which were nonsensical or plain erroneous, beats me.

Finally, as another example of MRA appreciation of those “high level statements” made by consultants, allow me to quote the former MRA chairman Austin Walker on the occasion of the publication of the 2006 call for expressions of interest: “the possibility of onshore wind farm development was considered to be unsustainable due to the country’s size and population density, (with foresight he might have added “and 53,000 empty dwellings”) together with the turbines’ negative visual impact”. The conclusion about visual impact was not based on photo-montages, and the complete dismissal of onshore wind farms went directly against a Mott Macdonald 2005 recommendation “to develop one large onshore wind farm on mainland Malta”, with “MRA (to) carry out a visual impact study and a public awareness campaign as a matter of urgency”. Apart from the word “large”, this is what “uninformed and incorrect” experts have long been pressing for, while the informed and correct MRA has been mainly dragging its collective feet.

E. A. Mallia

ATTARD