The Prime Minister on Sunday and the various ministers assembled near the Ta’ Barkat sewage treatment plant in Xghajra yesterday afternoon insisted on comparing the area’s sewage treatment plant with the proposed university for nearby Zonqor.

They are, quite frankly, talking effluent to put it politely.

In a radio interview on Sunday Dr Muscat, referring to the people of the south, he said: “One government have them a sewage plant [the previous administration] while we want to develop a university.”

This may have gone down well, in the Prime Minister’s mind, as a clever little sound bite but it not only cries, but it shrieks of patent disingenuousness.

Then Environment Minister Leo Brincat, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo and Economy Minister Chris Cardona yesterday convened a press conference yesterday afternoon at the very location of the sewage treatment plant.  And while they did not refer to this unfortunate comparison outright, when pressed by the media they insisted that the construction of the ‘American University’ of Malta is just as necessary as the nearby sewage treatment plant.

Both projects are located in Outside Development Zone (ODZ) areas but while one has worked absolute wonders for the environment, the other threatens to swallow up a considerable portion of virgin, and quite spectacular, land.

One has vastly improved the quality of life of not only the people of the south of Malta but indeed of the whole country, while the other, at least from our reading of the project, is a pure business venture aimed at fee-paying  and mostly foreign students.  And apart from a handful of scholarships that will apparently be handed out to Maltese students to follow courses at this new university and a handful of jobs, we fail to see how this educational project stands to improve anyone’s quality of life at all.

We can tell you that what the people of the south would want, if given the choice, would be clean water as opposed to the raw and untreated effluent that had been flowing out of Xagħra for decades, severely polluting the waters of the south of Malta.  They would not care two hoots for a university geared mainly toward foreign students.

The university’s added value to the country is hardly comparable to the added value the country has had from the sewage treatment plants that have been built over recent years: Ta’ Barkat itself, one in Gozo and another one at Anchor Bay.

Back in 2003 Malta was pouring 25.8 million cubic metres of untreated raw sewage into the sea every year.  Doctors used to blame marine pollution for skin and ear infections during the swimming season. People were turning up at the hospital with rashes, and doctors could only warn people not to swim in contaminated seas.

But by 2006 Malta had made significant progress and a European Commission report for that year had stated that 96 per cent of Malta’s designated bathing sites were free from marine pollution and complied with EU standards, a far cry from previous assessments.

The reason was that by that time Malta had built those three sewage treatment plants and as a result no raw sewage is any longer being dumped at sea.

The notable decrease in rashes and infections in the swimming season and the clearer and colder seas around the islands are the best qualifications of what has been a significant improvement in not only bathing water but in our quality of life. 

Not only have many family doctors noted a somewhat remarkable decline in the number of infections usually brought about by contact with polluted seawater, the sea is visibly clearer, colder and marine life is also thriving once again.

Thanks to these sewage treatment plants, Malta and its waters have come a long, long way over the last 10-odd years, and the country will continue to reap the benefits over the next ten years in terms of the tourism rewards and the even more tangible rewards in the improvement in the quality of all of our lives that comes with treating the county’s tens of millions of cubic metres sewage it produces every year.

Now how does that compare with the surrender of virgin land being gifted for a private business venture?