Lija’s 2013 fireworks display is in jeopardy

Lija’s award-winning St Michael’s Fireworks Club has warned that next August’s feast pyrotechnic display will not take place unless the club receives supplies of two vital chemicals by mid-November. The club’s access to potassium chlorate (putassa) and nitrate (nitrat) has been blocked by the Armed Forces, because of concerns that St Michael’s original storage facility on the limits of Naxxar is too close to populated areas for safety. But club members have said that for the past two years they have been paying for a remote facility in Salini and storing their fireworks there, in anticipation of legal amendments which would regulate fireworks storage. Those amendments were presented to Parliament in late October and must be debated and voted on before they come into effect. Parliament approved a second reading of the amendments just last week. “We’ve been waiting two years for this blessed law and nothing’s happened,” said club secretary Joseph Mangion, who said that the committee had done all it could to ensure compliance. “We knew about the proximity issue, which is why we had decided to reach into our own pockets and pay for an external storage facility ourselves two years...