No accidents or mishaps have been reported in the past days as a result of the first rainwater downpours. This does not however signify that all is well.

A quick look at our streets, when it is raining heavily, is sufficient to give a clear indication of the basic problem we continuously face. Quite a number of our streets are flooded, primarily as a result of the fact that a substantial number of our residential areas have no rainwater harvesting measures in place.

The problem is multifaceted.

A number of new and not so new properties do not have a rainwater cistern on site. As a result, rainwater which should be harvested either ends directly onto our streets or else it is dumped into the public sewer. Consequently, our streets are flooded and the public sewer is overloaded.

In each instance a number of problems arise.

The rainwater which ends up in our streets, instead of being harvested, is not just a wasted resource. It disrupts traffic, at times it floods homes and renders parts of our localities unusable during storms. In the quest to save life and limb our Department of Civil Protection is, as a result, unnecessarily overworked.

Previous governments tried to remedy this situation by collecting the rainwater flowing in our streets in underground tunnels below the central parts of Malta and dumping most of it into the sea. Instead of ensuring that those who were in breach of the law were brought to order, government preferred to waste millions of euros of EU funds to address the impact of their faults.  The taxpayer once more ended up funding the incompetence of the state.

On the other hand, when rainwater is dumped directly into the public sewer this is as a result overloaded. At a number of points this is the reason why the public sewer overflows onto our streets. This overloaded sewer carries sewage mixed with rainwater to the wastewater treatment plants which end up treating a substantially higher load during storms.

This signifies additional running costs for wastewater treatment plants, which costs are once more shouldered by the taxpayer.

All this is the result of a lack of enforcement by the appropriate authorities.

Is the Planning Authority checking that suitably sized water cisterns have been constructed on development sites before it issues a compliance certificate? You bet is as good as mine. The massive flow of rainwater in our roads during storms is indicative that the Planning Authority does not care.

Is the Water Services Corporation checking that the connections to the public sewer which it authorises are not intended to transfer rainwater into the public sewer? Most probably not, as the authorisation to connect is generally considered as a mere formality.

The Planning Authority and the Water Services Corporation have the authority and the resources to slowly solve this problem but they are not bothered.

We are inundated with speeches on sustainable development and on the sustainable use of natural resources. But when push comes to shove nothing substantial ever materialises. There is no political will to act: it is much easier to throw money at problems.

We continuously waste the water which nature provides at no cost and then go on spending millions to produce water for our different uses! This is the cost of incompetence.

An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta.  [email protected] ,   http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com