Fgura black dust mystery: A suggestion

Martin Seychell (Director, Environment Protection, Mepa, November 30) said that if traces of vanadium, nickel, magnesium and sulphur can be detected in the dust found in the Fgura area then it can "be definitely confirmed that the Marsa power station is the likely source of this nuisance".

However, the problem seems to be the collection of more than 10g of dust - because standard procedure requires this mass of dust for a "proper" analysis. It is understood that although Mepa has been collecting new dust samples since August, the amount collected is nowhere near the amount necessary to conduct proper tests - so it may take many more months before any analysis can be carried out and before we can have a clear indication of the source.

I would like to put forward a suggestion for consideration by Mepa. I believe it may be possible to carry out a wet chemistry test on a very small amount of dust sample (less than one gram); by dissolving the dust in an aqueous solution (water or acid) and then analysing the solute for the four compounds mentioned by Mr Seychell. These tests can be carried out in Malta (the Malta National Laboratory) and we can get a fairly good indicative result of the source within one to two weeks. This innovative approach will allow Mepa to focus its investigations on the most likely source, until a sufficiently large sample can be collected for proper analysis.

A point of clarification: Mr Seychell is incorrect when he says that the precipitators were installed at the Marsa power station in 2000. I was a trainee engineer at the Marsa power station in 1987-1992 and I can confirm that the precipitators were already in place and operational back then.