This year’s August silly season − that time of year when politics, business and the country’s movers and shakers call a time out − has been dominated by the antics of certain ‘campers’ in Marsaxlokk. And it is a good thing, for lack of more interesting news, that the issue has been highlighted to such an extent.

Such practices have been going on for years now and it is high time that the issues being raised are thrashed out once and for all. This country and its beaches are far too small for anyone to simply set up temporary homesteads anywhere they choose.

But while such problems have apparently been resolved, the real problem is far more wide-ranging. In fact, most remotely habitable coastal spots seem to be replete with similar set-ups.

Take also the long-standing, seemingly eternal problem of illegal boathouses, an issue that both main political parties approach with no small amount of trepidation, or even the abusive practices related to sun beds and beach umbrellas. There is no reason why some citizens should be deprived of their rights to enjoy this country of ours because others are reaping economic rewards or because they unjustly claim public land as their own.

Now that the government has set a precedent and evicted campers, there are two things that must be done. Firstly, some sort of national policy needs to be developed and secondly, the government is now obliged to mete out similar treatment to all those camping without the necessary permits. That also includes those who have erected structures instead of tents, namely the illegal boathouses in Gnejna, Armier and in so many other places around the islands.

As in the case of illegal spring hunting, the state simply cannot allow people to do they as they please and certainly not at the expense of the rest of the public.

Now that the government has taken action and set the ball rolling, it should be expected that it continues to take action.

Fighting on the beaches

We shall fight them on the beaches Winston Churchill famously said when he summoned the British to war against the Axis powers in World War Two. And theoretically at least, the island of Malta was the British Empire’s southernmost beachhead in those desperate times.

This week Malta paused to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Operation Pedestal, also known as the Santa Marija Convoy, which was a pivotal point not only in Maltese history, but also in the war itself. Had that convoy not reached Malta, Malta and Europe itself could be a very different place today.

This country, Europe and indeed the entire world owe their gratitude to those brave men who manned the convoy’s ships and this week’s ceremony and unveiling of a monument to their heroic efforts is only a small token of our appreciation for those who fought, survived or perished in their desperate bid to reach Malta with their supplies and the much needed fuel for the RAF based here in Malta. Our deepest gratitude and respect goes to those men and women, and indeed to all Maltese who lived through those horrific times that many of us cannot even begin to imagine, and which we will hopefully never be called to live up to.

Once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Accountability beached

In the wake of the former Malta Environment and Planning Authority audit officer’s report on Mepa, Enemalta and the mercaptan scandal, accountability appears to have been washed up on some remote beach.

On 4 August, a damning indictment against the authority for its handling, or rather, its non-handling of Enemalta when it came to the illegal disposal of mercaptan, a potentially dangerous chemical, was published by Alternattiva Demokratika, which had requested an investigation.

The report concluded that Mepa had failed in its statutory obligation to take action against Enemalta for breaching rules on the disposal of hazardous waste.

This is a very serious charge for an authority tasked with protecting our environment, and provides very little by way of reassurance that the function is being fulfilled to its full extent.

This lack of reassurance has been further reinforced by the wall of silence in the wake of the report on the part of the authorities concerned, or rather, the authorities that should be concerned.

And it is this lack of reassurance that seems to pervade the entire area of energy production and the disposal of related waste.

Take, as examples, the infamous black dust, still an unsolved mystery after all these years, and 2009’s intentional release of hundreds of tonnes of fly ash into the atmosphere.

It is nothing short of preposterous that several areas of the country have been plagued by mysterious black dust pollution for several years and that no one in a position of authority has yet been able to officially identify the source of the pollution, or offer any kind of explanation that has been anything more than half-baked. In the meantime, people point their fingers in blame at Enemalta’s smokestacks.

What about those months in 2009 when the pollution-collecting precipitators at the Marsa power station were simply switched off after Mepa issued a stop order on the owners of the quarry where the fly ash was being kept, and also stopped them from using the fly ash as a mixer in its concrete? Once the precipitators were switched off, and since Enemalta had nowhere else to store the fly ash, the pollution was simply blown into the atmosphere, at a rate of a tonne a day for effectively seven whole months.

Like the mercaptan case, this incident may never have come to light had a journalist, this time from this newspaper, not investigated the story on a hunch. One wonders how many other similar incidents our air, environment and possibly our health have been subjected to.

The people deserve reassurances, backed up by concrete action, that such behaviour has been stamped out.