Updated | FAA supports Senglea residents' Palumbo night time noise complaint

Fondazzjoni Ambjent Ahjar has issued a statement in support of a group of Senglea residents who filed a criminal complaint against Palumbo shipyard, alleging that it was carrying out noisy repair work all though the night. 

In the statement, FAA said that this was a case of environmental justice. "Palumbo shipyards should implement good management practice by limiting noisy work to daytime hours. If this carries with it an economic onus for Palumbo, it should be kept in mind that residents’ health and loss of productivity also has economic an impact on the nation.”

"A cross between a spin cycle and a large rumbling tank" is how one Senglea resident described the noise of night-time works being carried out at Dock 5 of the Palumbo shipyard, to a court earlier today.

A group of residents from the Senglea Residents Association organisation filed a criminal complaint against the Palumbo shipyards yesterday, claiming that the incessant noise coming from the facility has made their lives a misery.

This morning Magistrate Aaron Bugeja heard Anna Spiteri, PRO of the Senglea Residents Association, testify how the noise had started on the previous Monday. She described the loud rumblings as sounding like a generator. At first she had thought it was a car idling in the road outside, she said, but when the noise then went on for hours, it was noticed to be coming from a ship in the Palumbo shipyard.

The criminal complaint was filed on behalf of the Association against Palumbo director Joseph Calleja together with Captain Francesco Impollino and Engine Superintendent Saverio Vellucci as representatives of the vessel Hamal. The trio are accused of having “disturbed the repose of residents” during the nights preceding 29 January, between the hours of 11:10pm and 3:00am at Dock 5 in Paola.

Spiteri, who lives a row of houses away from the bastions, testified to hearing the noise from her house. Outside the courtroom, Spiteri told the MaltaToday how people who live right opposite the bastions had told her that it was impossible to sleep.

Before the sitting began, residents had crowded around this reporter outside the courtroom, all eager to express their anger at the incessant noise.

One man explained how he would be awoken at 3:30am to sounds of “hammering and cutting with a saw.” Another played a video recording on his mobile phone of the of the noise allegedly emanating from the shipyard, late at night. Yet another resident whose wife is confined to a wheelchair, complained that he could not take his wife out on the balcony because of the noise and dust pollution. He had to install double glazing because of the noise, he said.

“My daughter has exams this week,” Spiteri said. “She told me ‘mum I cant take it any more’. People are getting sick, this cannot go on.”

In court, the woman's outrage was palpable. “Yes Palumbo needs to work but we need to sleep, too. We know that the MEPA permits they have allow them to work till 10pm and we are fine with that. But not that they work at night.”

The generator noise was “the last straw” which led them to file the criminal complaint the witness explained.

But the residents' choice to not appoint a lawyer to represent them as parte civile this morning may prove their undoing. The witness at first refused to name the residents for whom she was appearing, necessitating the court explain that they would have to be summoned to testify as these were criminal proceedings. She provided the court with two names: Jesmond Bonnici and Rita Vassallo, who live above the bastions and must now be traced and summoned for tomorrow's sitting by the police.

Defence lawyer Abigail Bugeja asked the witness how long the disturbance had been going on. Five years, came the answer. The court then explained that the criminal complaint was only about the noise and not any other issues. The witness corrected herself,“this generator has been going non-stop for a week.” Asked by the defence, the witness could not name the vessel or give its IMO number, but said that she "was quite sure" that it was coming from dock five.

From over the bastions, she said that she could see two ships side by side, one of which belonged to Grimaldi. She could not identify which ship the noise was emanating from, as the ship was approximately 400m away from the bastions, which were separated from her house by a row of houses. “To me it is irrelevant which ship is making the noise, the fact is that I can't sleep because of the noise and the noise is emanating from Palumbo shipyard.”

At first the residents thought it was from the land, but the police had told them that the noise was coming from the ship and had been told that it would be there for another ten days.

Defence lawyer Matthew Brincat asked the woman how she could be so sure of the distance. Had she measured it, he asked. Spiteri replied that she had, as part of a recently completed mapping exercise for the council.

“When the jazz festival is held at Valletta waterfront, all Senglea hears it, and this dock is much closer.”

Paul McDonald, an expat from the US, told the court that he had filed three reports in January and that he had taken the video of the scene,which this reporter had been shown outside the court, capturing the elevated noise levels. The cacophony coming from Palumbo Shipyard was not limited to generator noise but included sandblasting, hammering and sawing with a metal saw, which operations the resident had filmed as proof . The young man confirmed that his sleep had been disturbed on several occasions. Answering a question put to him by lawyer Matthew Brincat as to whether he had managed to sleep after one particularly bad night, the witness replied “Yes, five days later”.

At the police station, it was concluded that the noise was coming from a generator, running "to keep the workers warm at night." However, the witness testified that the noises had included metal banging against metal and sawing through metal. He said he saw "what looked like welding sparks."

The residents stressed that they were not expecting a blanket ban on noise being generated by Palumbo Shipyards, but were simply asking for a ban on noise during the night.

On the instructions of the magistrate, court expert Prof. Joseph Agius will be measuring noise levels at the shipyard and in the residents' houses before the the case resumes tomorrow.

Lawyers Abigail Bugeja, Matthew Brincat and Kathleen Grima appeared for the defendants.