Sewage Leak In Valletta Drives Residents’ Children Out Of Home Due To Fear Of Contamination
A sewage leak in Valletta that was spewing drainage into the streets has driven one family to send their children to their grandparents out of fear of contamination.
A block of flats in St Paul’s Street was leaking raw drainage onto neighbouring buildings and homes of frustrated residents, around two weeks ago.
“The stench was unbearable and no one was doing anything about it since the law protects these medieval occurrences,” Jack* told Lovin Malta after spending a week with “shit” flowing onto his doorstep and into his garage and basement.
He even had to send his young children to live with their grandparents over the weekend out of fear of contamination: “All it takes is for them to be bitten by one contaminated mosquito.”
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Upon noticing the sewage Jack quickly went to speak with one of the tenants of the apartments who said he was simply not willing to pay to fix the blockage, and neither were the other occupants of the apartments that are allegedly state-owned.
“It wasn’t a problem for them because the drainage was being pumped out of their residences and into ours.”
Jack then resorted to local authorities – he spoke with the Water Services Corporation (WSC), the Health Authorities, the Valletta Local Council, and the police. But, he was confronted with the same response that this newsroom was when it questioned the WSC: “This is a private drainage blockage so it’s not in our remit.”
It was only until Jack threatened to take legal action against one of the tenants that the overflow was fixed less than a day later but a whole week after the leak began.
This incident is symptomatic of a much larger problem with drainage in Valletta, Jack told Lovin Malta, due to a lack of a law that gives the local council the power to fix a blockage or leak when it flows out of a private manhole and then send the landlord or tenants the bill.
Lovin Malta was informed both by Jack and the WSC that the Valletta Local Council was aware of the issue. However, when speaking with Mayor Alfred Zammit, he stated he had not heard of it.
Nonetheless, the newsroom asked Zammit if he believes that local councils should be able to intervene in these issues and questioned whether he’d ever consider making such intervention a by-law in Valletta.
This was his response:
“Private drainage systems should be maintained by tenants. As a council, we do report if the issue and drainage section determine whether it’s a private or a government issue.”
He stated that if the issue develops into one concerning public health, the council will take action with the police to retrieve the identity of the owner of the property. Then, inspectors from the Cleansing Department will intervene.
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals.
Have you ever been affected by long-lasting sewage leaks in Valletta?
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