With the public consultation process on the new Delimara power station wrapping up today, there are many questions that have been left unanswered. And perhaps the most prominent of those issues that have been left pending is the project’s overall adherence to the European Union’s Seveso Directive, which has, like all EU legislation, been transposed into national legislation.

That directive obliges all member states to ensure that operators of potentially hazardous facilities such as the Delimara power plant and its accompanying LNG tanker have a policy in place to prevent major accidents. According to the directive, member states must ensure that emergency plans are in place for the surrounding areas and that mitigation actions are planned. 

So far, so good.

But it also stipulates that operators handling dangerous substances above certain thresholds must regularly inform the public likely to be affected by a potential accident with safety reports, a safety management system and an internal emergency plan.

But when the 15,000-page risk assessment report on the new power station was published, there were substantial parts of the emergency plan that were redacted – leaving nearby residents almost completely in the dark about the procedures that would be adopted should the worst come to the worst in their locality.

This newspaper had reported some two years ago that the European Commission had made it clear that the project would have to comply with EU regulations on the effects of certain public or private projects on the environment and in terms of major accident hazards, including the Seveso rules on accidents.

As such, it is more than questionable as to whether the power station is in conformity with the Seveso Directive and whether it could find itself in hot water with the European Commission further down the road in terms of facing infringement procedures.

But, in the meantime, it is clear that the government and operators, by not informing the public on the full gambit of the risks they face and the procedures to be adopted in the worst case scenario, has ignored the rights of nearby residents.

There has undoubtedly been a complete beach of the Seveso Directive since there were several empty pages in the external emergency report, pages that the public have the full right to access, with Electrogas claiming that it is unable to reveal parts of the plan on the supposed pretext of national security.

It is undeniable that just about every trick in the book has been used to pull the wool over the public’s eye. First, the so-called public consultation process was anything but that. There were 15,000 pages of techno-babble that no layman had any chance of being able to interpret.

Then came the so-called public consultation meeting in Marsaxlokk, which was almost entirely comprised of presentations from Electrogas and the powers that be, and which left the actual public hardly any time whatsoever to vent their concerns or indeed to have those concerns answered.

And now the project is likely in serious violation of the EU directive because people are not being informed of what will happen in the eventuality of an industrial accident at the facility.

No doubt, the publication of evacuation plans and the like would cause quite a stir, and those who are seeking to downplay the negative public sentiment on the project certainly have a vested interest in putting a lid on any such considerations.

Alternattiva Demokratika drove the point home yesterday, highlighting its submissions to the public consultation exercise, which focused on the emergency plan that the Department of Civil Protection was obliged to submit for public consultation but which was, instead, kept under lock and key. 

The Green party yesterday pledged to continue to insist that such plans are published, as has the Nationalist Party. But it seems that no such plans will ever see the light of day until arms are twisted by the European Commission.

And what, exactly does this say of the government? That it will only oblige and give its citizens the respect and consideration they deserve and are entitled to only under extreme duress?

It seems that is, after all, the sad reality of the situation. Those who have been lumped with the LNG tanker in their locality and the risks that come along with it deserve far, far better than this. This is not a case of ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’, it is a case of people being entitled to know what can hurt them and to know what mitigation measures are in place to prevent them being hurt.