The final few paragraphs of Annaliza Borg’s piece “The Debatable State of the Environment” contain some quite remarkable statements on the problems of air quality (TMIS, 2 May).

The great hope that a reform of public transport must, by itself, lead to improvement has a number of weaknesses. The first concerns the obvious one that some of our air quality problems are not connected with traffic but with poorly controlled industrial activity, including electricity generation. Another involves the significant pollution that heavy and commercial vehicles contribute; this will not be affected by reforms in public transport, but by real vehicle emission controls. And given that the number and intensity of use of private vehicles must also contribute significantly, effective measures to wean people away from constant use of private vehicles must accompany the reform. A further point of concern arises from the fact that comparatively clean fuels, like LPG for cars and natural gas for buses and cars, are not yet on the near-horizon here, when both European and Japanese car makers are producing a range of flexi-fuel models. Neither are electric cars in an excellent position to tap our new-found enthusiasm for photo-electricity. Hybrids, with low CO2 /km, have made small inroads. Yet in the end, the sovereign remedy is reduced private car use, which puts the onus principally on us all.

Yet the most astonishing statements – apparently made by Martin Seychell himself – concern the recent ‘black dust’ episode. To lay out the facts now in the public domain: for four years, from 2004, Enemalta had been giving the fly ash trapped by the Marsa electrostatic precipitators to Polidano Brothers. In July 2008, Mepa woke up and issued a stop order, which, as might have been expected, only became effective at the target’s convenience. The Enemalta reaction, however, was much quicker: the precipitators, collecting around one tonne of fly ash per day, were switched off, and remained switched off for seven months. That decision, author unknown but easily guessed at, must have deposited up to 200t of fly ash on the heads of citizens living around Marsa.

On the public stage Enemalta, Mepa and ministers were playing out the charade of ‘contaminated’ samples, inconclusive results, overseas analyses, inadequate former consultants and empty updates. And they got away with it, as at that time we were not aware of the background facts. But for Martin Seychell – the head of Mepa’s Environment Division no less – to be going on with this travesty now is beyond belief. Such statements as “… while monitoring exercises are ongoing, it is difficult to see where the dense dust was coming from, as it is no longer being emitted” amount to infamous conduct by a public official, who knows very well that the dust is not being emitted any longer simply because the precipitators have been switched on again. And once more we have the Prime Minister, heading a government where ‘responsibility’ seems to be a dirty word, telling us that “no one has been found guilty”: neither the public-spirited person who switched off the precipitators, nor the people still sedulously broadcasting a charade nor, of course, their political masters. What does one have to do to be ‘guilty’ of anything in this place? Or is lese majeste, simply calling a spade a spade, the only ‘crime’ in our political masters’ books?

E.A. Mallia

ATTARD