When it comes to the increasingly controversial plans by the government to berth a liquid natural gas floating storage unit smack in the middle of Marsaxlokk Bay, the bottom line beyond any shade of doubt has to be public safety. After that, the main consideration must be to ensure that those people living a stone’s throw away from the installation actually know there is nothing to fear.
The safety factor certainly must not be made to play second fiddle to the profit margins envisaged by the consortium tasked with the gargantuan project. Nor should safety play second fiddle to the political considerations that demand expediency to ensure it is up and running within the time frames stipulated by the government’s electoral programme.
But it appears that the government is failing in both respects.
As shown in an article carried in today’s issue, it seems that the fireworks issue has not even been factored into the risk assessment equation. When we made our enquiries on the issue, no one in authority seemed to know the answer to our questions and we were redirected from one authority to another and, after exhausting all the avenues possible, we are still without an answer to the question of whether it is being considered safe to let off fireworks in the vicinity of the new LNG project.
When it comes to fireworks, there are two major considerations that are very particular to Malta.
The first is its size. In a country of these meagre proportions, there is little choice but to locate facilities such as power stations close to built up, inhabited areas. In other countries, a power station would not be found within the kind of proximity that the Delimara power station is to Marsaxlokk. Having said that, it also stands to reason that fireworks would not be let off anywhere near a liquid natural gas operation.
Secondly, love it or hate it, in Malta we approach fireworks with a particular amount of zeal that puts other countries’ fireworks celebrations to shame. Not only are the night time fireworks displays simply enormous in their proportions and duration, but there are also the petards that are let off throughout the days of festa weeks – each one presenting some sort of risk, however negligible.
The fireworks issue should, really and truly, have sent alarm bells pealing from day one of any risk assessment. This serious lacuna belies the rush that the government is in to see the project through according to its election campaign-ordained timelines.
Yesterday, an article in another newspaper highlighted how, if the storage tanker were to be moored outside Marsaxlokk Bay, consumer costs would rise, placing the government’s pledge to cut electricity rates by 25 per cent by the end of this month in peril. It would also delay the project, possibly beyond the Prime Minister’s self-imposed deadlines, short of which he has said he will resign.
But surely the Prime Minister could be forgiven for not meeting his deadline because of safety concerns. This newspaper will certainly not call for his head should he fail to meet the deadline because of the safety concerns.
Yes, we all want cheaper electricity and cleaner air through a gas-fuelled power plant, but those costs cannot and should not be calculated simply in monetary terms. Residents’ peace of mind, or quality of life as politicians like to put it, must also figure.
As a newspaper, we are not in the scaremongering business and for all we know the installation that the government is pushing through may very well be perfectly safe at the end of the day. But, when something as obvious as a risk assessment on fireworks being let off and dotting the sky around an installation of this sort is not even factored into the risk assessment, there is a serious problem.
And that problem is not only about the fireworks themselves which, at the end of the day, may be shown to not pose a threat.
The real problem is that if something as obvious as that is not even considered, who knows what else has not yet been considered.
In the meantime, the Prime Minister missed a golden opportunity in his televised debate with the Opposition leader on Friday night to allay the fears of people living near the power station, which is exactly what he should have done on the very same day that the experienced fishermen of Marsaxlokk cried foul and highlighted the multiple dangers of berthing the tanker in the bay, where seas are known to turn violent at times. Moreover, a breakwater to calm those rough seas inside the bay has also been ruled out, apparently out of concern for costs and expediency.
But the Prime Minister did not seek to allay those fears in any tangible way; he only basically told the public that the installation will be safe and essentially asked people to take his word for it.
We are sorry, but the people will need more convincing than that, especially in face of the facts being highlighted on practically a daily basis by the Opposition and the Green party. The Prime Minister needs to be much more convincing than he is at the moment. His significant and practically undefeatable parliamentary majority is no substitute for public opinion and the public’s concerns.
Once upon a time we believed that a price tag could not be attached to the Maltese national identity. The government has changed that perception. We still believe that no price tag, political or monetary, can be placed on citizen’s safety and their legitimate concerns but, in the way in which it is behaving, the government seems to be well on track to changing that belief as well.