Zurrieq quarry in protected area green-lit by new MEPA appeals tribunal

New MEPA appeals board appointed by Labour governemnt in 2013 issues controversial permit for quarry in Wied Moqbol in Zurrieq.

In its latest controversial decision, MEPA’s appeals tribunal has revoked a previous decision not issue a permit for a quarry in the picturesque Wied Moqbol valley taken by MEPA in 2005 and by a different appeals board back in 2009.

The original application, first turned down in 2005, was for the relocation of a quarry from Hagar Qim to Wied Moqbol in Hal Far.

Environmentalists and Zurrieq mayor Ignatius Farrugia had opposed the development.

The site at Wied Moqbol in Zurrieq is designated by the South Malta Local Plan as an agricultural area. The policy clearly states: “MEPA will continue to protect agricultural land from all types of inappropriate development. Within agricultural areas, as indicated on the relevant Environmental Constraints Maps, only buildings, structures and uses essential to the needs of agriculture will be permitted” in such areas.

Moreover the nearby Wied Moqbol is designated as a Special Area of Conservation of International Importance under the Natura 2000 programme in view of the importance of the species as well as archaeological remains found there.

An appeal against this decision by Charles Fenech was also rejected by an appeals board in 2009, but its sentence was overtuned by the law courts.

The law courts did not call for the approval of the permit but accepted Fenech’s appeal because the appeals board in its 2009 decision had not given the developers the opportunity to present their views on the application of the policy which justified the refusal of the permit.

The Department of Agriculture had objected to the development in May 2013, stating that noted that with the exception of an adjacent quarry, the site was pristine agricultural land of great aesthetic and environmental value on which grow a substantial number of large carob trees, some of which are of millenarian age and other local tree species that warrant protection.

In its new decision, the new MEPA appeas tribunal recognized that the development would result in the “loss of rural characteristics” like rubble walls and trees. But it also concluded that the impact on agriculture was temporary as the quarry can be rehabilitated after the stone resource is exhausted.

It also observed that the development is compensated by the rehabilitation of quarries in the vicinity of the Hagar Qim monuments. “This means that the development will not result in the loss of agricultural land.”

The tribunal which issued the controversial permit is composed of Labour candidate and lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace, Freeport Chairman and private architect Robert Sarsero and planner Martin Saliba.