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Matthew Vella
Dredging at the Salini watercourse in St Paul’s Bay are covered by a full development permit by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, but the works conducted by the government’s work division had started before even being sanctioned by the national planning authority.
Submissions from the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage had informed MEPA to consider the existence of recorded archaeological finds on the Salini seabed. The Salini bay also hosts Posidonia beds of aquatic plants.
“We expressed our concern that it should not be disturbed,” a member of the Superintendence told MaltaToday about the Salini bed, “however the clearing of the waterways is a job that has to be done so that the system does not get blocked. Having said this, there were strong recommendations for monitoring the clearing of the waterways, because we were concerned the works could be harmful.”
The dredging of the Salini waterways is being conducted by the government’s Works Division to clean the blocked and silted up stormwater channel, subject to monitoring by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.
The works in fact started before the Works Division was awarded a full development permit, which they applied for back in July 2004.
In October 2004, the case-officer recommended that permission is refused. But later in January 2005, the works were given the go-ahead by the Development Control Commission, approving the works in view that these were a part-flood relief project for the Burmarrad area.
Some 14,000 cubic metres of silt and algae were dredged by the division from the 800-metre canal.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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