Quarry dust makes things ‘unbearable’ for residents
Dust from a gigantic pile of construction sand stored at the Attard Wied Inċita quarry has been blown over neighbouring areas causing “great inconvenience” to residents of Rabat, Attard and Żebbuġ.
The strong winds that blew over the past week made things “unbearable”, some residents said as they reached out to Times of Malta to complain about the dust that was infiltrating homes, coating gardens and increasing asthma attacks.
Quarry owner Michael Bugeja said he would be taking action and will be removing the sand that had to be temporarily placed on higher ground – where it was more exposed to the wind. The process of clearing the sand should take about five days, he said.
The issue was also flagged on social media by former Nationalist MP Jefferey Pullicino Orlando who spoke about the “massive inconvenience” that he experienced as a resident of Żebbuġ. In the post, he also spoke about how Bugeja had reached out to him to assure him that action would be taken.
Attard mayor Stefan Cordina said that, over the past
weeks, residents had complained about the dust and the air quality.
“Removing the mound of sand will help immensely, although we are talking about a quarry that is in operation, so there is no guarantee that no more dust will be blown on windy days,” he said.
Żebbuġ mayor Steve Zammit Lupi said that residents also complained about the dust and air quality, adding that “the mountain of rubble and sand is very visible from people’s homes, apart from being an eyesore”.
This was not the first time that residents complained
about dust from the quarry. In 2009, residents had protested over the matter.
Meanwhile Bugeja, known as Il-Bilom, said he was trying to minimise the inconvenience to residents.
As for the pile of dust, he said that this was placed there about six weeks ago, until he
could make space to relocate it lower down in the quarry where it was more sheltered from the wind.
He added that he had a pending application to relocate the plant lower down in the quarry and build stores on the higher part to ensure this would not happen again.