Anger in Qala

Published on the Malta Independent on Friday 28th May, 2010 by Noel Grima.

The last time a public consultation had been held in Qala regarding the Hondoq ir-Rummien project was September 2002. A superficial comparison would show that yesterday once again, despite the project having been meanwhile slashed and adapted, the meeting developed into a rowdy, noisy meeting with a lot of shouting and with hot tempers flaring.

But since from the media present I was the only one who had been there in long-ago 2002, I could note certain important changes.

In 2002, the meeting was dominated by the clergy of the place. Yesterday only one priest was present and he spoke last. In 2002 no one from the village dared show he was in favour of the project under pain of being ostracised by the community. Yesterday, some pro-project voices were heard and there was a clear presence in the crowded hall of supporters of the project.

Again, while some pro-project speakers, notably Vince Farrugia whose intervention was punctuated by roars and protests, (leaving the hall, Mr Farrugia was attacked by a person from the crowd and suffered a small cut to the chin) clearly raised hackles, other pro-project speakers were heard out in silence and respect. Such was the case, for instance of Dr Gordon Cordina.

There was a bedrock of opposition to the project by the Qala residents but the focus of the opposition now centres on the yacht marina project, rather than the project as a whole. While some old-timers would want to retain everything as is, others are prepared to see the quarry in the bay cleaned up and something done about it, although the most that some could bring themselves to say was to suggest turning it into a park, just as the government is doing with Maghtab in Malta.

Many times, especially in the first hour or so, the meeting came dangerously close to developing into a fully-blown riot. First, far too many people turned up than the hall could hold, and people banged angrily at a panel of explanatory posters which stood in their way until this was removed to the back of the hall.

Then something quite serious happened: the meeting refused to allow anybody to speak in English, which is a pity because 10% of the Qala residents are foreign and many of these residents were actually in the hall to support the residents against the project. There was an almost corresponding xenophobic sentiment against the people from Malta, although on the boat coming back one could notice some of the most vociferous opponents coming back to Malta.

Visually, the television and maybe newspaper photo coverage would probably focus on an elderly white-haired woman who could not be kept down. She kept jumping up and shouting and not even a quiet word from the police inspector could calm her down. People said she used to be the locality’s headmistress. Then, in the midst of the mayhem, a burly policewoman strode into the room intent on grabbing the lady and pushing her out. Wiser counsels prevailed and suddenly the lady was told to sit next to me (I swear I had nothing to do with it) and she calmed down. Later she made a speech which was quite well-structured and she was heard in silence and applauded later.

At the beginning of proceedings, Qala councillor Paul Buttigieg showed an amateur video showing Hondoq as people know it. But without his realising it, some people who saw it commented later that this was precisely the no laws Hondoq that many people seem to want to preserve.

Astrid Vella from Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar focused on the Mepa process: when Mepa itself did an exercise to see if any yacht marina site could be found in Gozo, it studied 11 places but Hondoq was not among them. Mepa’s Natural Heritage Committee also did a report which was not included in the EIS. And as for Mepa monitoring, Ms Vella showed photos of what happened in Sliema (Portomaso) under Mepa monitoring.

Time and again the Portomaso history was resurrected since an ecological disaster happened when the sea was let into the dug-out bay and all careful preparations were swept aside and the local fauna, Posidonia Meadows just as there are outside Hondoq, became clouded. Edward Bencini, the Hondoq project architect, who had also been the Hilton architect, said that after some time the Posidonia Meadows had healed themselves and today the sea quality inside the Hilton artificial bay is so clean that big fish come and swim in and people swim just outside the entrance. The part regarding the Posidonia Meadows was vociferously contested by Alan Deidun.

The sea quality of Hondoq was time and again praised by many speakers and it was clear they were worried that allowing the bay to be dug up, just like the Hilton, could introduce alien pollution into the bay. One speaker even said the pollution from Hondoq might even pollute nearby Blue Lagoon in Comino.

Towards the end, a returned migrant, Joseph Galea from Ghajnsielem, who said he works in yachts, spoke of the danger of anti-fouling paint polluting the whole bay.

People also pooh-poohed the claim by Architect Mariello Spiteri for the applicant that the bay will be washed every three days and that in case of pollution, the bay will be sealed off from the sea by a curtain and the pollution collected by means of a special boom. While such tools undoubtedly exist, the people at the hearing were not ready to believe this could be done. What they know is the pristine quality of the sea at Hondoq.

Vince Farrugia’s attempt at speaking was many times drowned by roars of anger. First some objected to his speaking at that phase since that time was reserved for NGOs, as GRTU, for them, is not an NGO. Mr Farrugia interpreted this as someone attempting to shut him up. It is difficult to get investment to Malta and especially to Gozo, he said. People want jobs for their children. The opposition against this project means that the people of Gozo do not want even investment from Gozo.

Michael Grech, from the Gozo Business Chamber, made much the same points but since he spoke quietly, his words did not raise the walls of anger that had met Mr Farrugia.

Qala mayor Paul Buttigieg spoke at length and was heard out quietly. He claimed, amid other

things, that the social report in the EIS did not do what the local council did when it held a referendum in 2002 and 85 per cent of the 75 per cent who were interviewed said they were against the project. Instead the compiler of the social report, who later turned out to be Professor Mario Vassallo, asked people not just from Qala but also from Nadur and Ghajnsielem and then lumped them together. Prof. Vassallo did not ask people in Nadur whether they would want such a project at the two bays of Nadur. (Prof. Vassallo rose to state that the terms of reference were set out by Mepa. And after all, Hondoq is peopled in summer not just by people from Qala but from both Malta and Gozo.)

Mr Buttigieg also claimed that the Traffic Impact Assessment was done wrongly as measurements were taken in junctions outside the village and not in the village core.

This was reinforced later by many people especially elderly who spoke of the daily battle they wage against trucks who despite all rules and monitoring claims, pass through the narrow roads of the village and leave very little space for pedestrians.

As time went by, and the meeting ran over its projected time by about two hours, although many of the crowd left the hall, the situation tended to degenerate at times.

Some intra-village feuds came to the fore, as when Deputy Mayor Dr Ray Xerri spoke, causing some to exhibit extreme anger against him, possibly because he broke ranks and supported the project.

Alan Deidun asked why the EIS did not refer to an MMA study on the yacht marina project in Gozo. He also claimed that many EU directives were not referred to.

Mr Bencini showed photos of St George’s Bay, the only Blue Flag bay so far in Malta, which has yachts tied up some distance from the beach but no pollution reaches the bathers and the sunbathers. This will be the only Yacht Marina Village in Malta. There will be 8750 square metres of space open to the public.

Dr Gordon Cordina showed a presentation which showed that Gozo has a lower GDP output than Malta, 8000 to 11,000, less jobs. For Gozo to reach Malta’s levels 2,000 new jobs must be created. This project will create 600 jobs at construction time, with a multiplier effect of 1000 jobs and while in operation will employ between 200 and 400 jobs.

Doing nothing may be an option, but is it the best one? Maybe parts of the project need to be fine-tuned and enough controls and monitoring introduced to ensure nothing goes bad. Maybe the developer could also finance the studies of some people from the village or also introduce clean energy not just to the site but why not, give out PV panels to the village?

The concept of the project creating jobs did not enthuse many. One pointed out to the San Lawrenz hotel where mostly foreigners are employed. Others said only cheap jobs would be created while others still pointed out that hotels like the Mgarr and L-Andar have closed down.

Right at the end, Dun Lawrenz Theuma claimed that the quarry had been turned into a rubbish dump by the local council. “Not true”, the mayor jumped to protest: the rubbish was brought there from other places in Gozo because there was no other space to offload rubbish in Gozo. Go figure that out...

On the boat going to Gozo and also coming back, one could not but be struck by the numbers of Gozitans crossing in either direction. Most were clearly either coming from university or similar education or from work. Dr Cordina’s words continued to haunt me.