An outline application for a waste transfer station in Gozo has been approved by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

Managed by Wasteserv Malta Ltd, the government’s waste management unit, the facility will be built in Tal-Kus, between Xewkija and Mgarr ix-Xini, and should include a civic amenity site for the collection and sorting of recyclable waste.

Some 35,000 tonnes of waste originating each year in Gozo are to be processed in the facility, which will be built inside an unused quarry on the hillside “to reduce the visual impact of the station as much as possible”.

The waste will be loaded onto lorries and carried to the engineered landfill in Malta via Gozo Channel ferries during off-peak trips.

The Mepa board yesterday heard how the site was the most suitable of three sites which had been identified originally: Ta’ l-Imghajjen, close to Xewkija, Ta’ Brieghen, close to Ghajnsielem and Tal-Kus.

The chosen site was needed as part of the waste strategy plan laid out by the government when the Qortin landfill was closed down upon Malta’s accession to the European Union, WasteServ Malta chief executive officer Vincent Magri argued.

He promised that WasteServ was ready to cooperate with local councils and NGOs to protect the areas of ecological and archaeological importance in the area.

Tal-Kus had been identified as the likely location by Francis Zammit Dimech, then Minister for Resources, and Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono back in November 2002.

The choice had been welcomed by Ghajnsielem mayor Francis Cauchi as it meant that the site at Tal-Brieghen, which had been vociferously opposed by the PN-led Ghajnsielem council, was being dropped. However, it also rang alarm bells for Xewkija mayor Monica Vella, who opposed the project during yesterday’s meeting held in public and questioned the transparency of the process.

Arguing that Tal-Kus was not suitable for a waste transfer station, Dr Vella said the alternative site assessment study had concluded that the site had poor access and was not adequate for the facility.

The Xewkija mayor argued that for this reason, the Mepa board had chosen the site beyond its legal capacity.

The board’s chairman, Andrew Calleja, retorted that the authority had not chosen the site before yesterday’s meeting but only gave the go-head for studies to be carried out once there had been sufficient evidence that Tal-Kus was “the preferred site”.

Dr Vella claimed that the waste transfer station would fall within a “regional park” in Mgarr ix-Xini valley which Mepa had approved in 2002.

It turned out, however, that the approved project involved the rehabilitation of rubble walls in the area and not an official park per se.

Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Harry Vassallo questioned whether Gozo really needed a waste transfer station when waste could be brought over directly to Malta, as was happening at present.

Dr Vassallo said the project should be refused because, he claimed, the application was defective on many grounds. The applicants should be asked to carry out “serious” studies on other sites so that the process may be flawless, if the authorities insisted on a waste station in Gozo. Otherwise, if any entity decided to request a warrant of prohibitory injunction, the project would be postponed for several years, delaying the whole process.

Among the Gozitans who turned up for the meeting was Mgr Anton Gauci who said that people in authority should be informed independently before deciding upon a project “so that people may not suspect, reasonably, that the decision was influenced by something else”.