The Malta Environment and Planning Authority wrote to the Birżebbuġa local council insisting that the Public Health Department is obliged to enforce the condition it imposed on the Freeport, for dredging works not be carried out during the bathing season.

Mepa reacted after the local council wrote to the authority expressing its concerns about the dredging works.

Mepa’s CEO Ian Stafrace wrote to the mayor, saying that Mepa did not receive an application to change the conditions imposed and therefore the Health Department should be ensuring that the condition not to carry out dredging works at this time of the year is respected.

Some Birżebbuġa residents, led by Birżebbuġa mayor Joseph Farrugia and Birżebbuġa Environment Action Group president Carmelo Cachia, last Saturday gathered at Wied il-Buni right between the Freeport and the town’s popular sandy beach, to protest against the Freeport’s apparent plans to carry out dredging works in summer.

Dredging stirs the residue deposited on the seabed, causing it to float towards the sea’s surface.

The bone of contention is a clause in the Freeport’s permit, which clearly stipulates that “works shall not be carried out in the official bathing season”.

But, protesters said last Saturday, the owners of moorings off the Freeport’s Terminal 1 West Quay received a notice to remove their moorings by 10 June so as to make way for dredging activities. In a previous letter, mariners were informed that dredging of the fairway leading to the basin between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 is to resume.