Air pollution targets and their achievement

I refer to the article Malta To Miss Air Pollutant Targets (May 25). Mepa would like to clarify the following:

The article in question talks about projections which were forwarded by Mepa to the EEA. According to these projections the total sulphur dioxide emissions from Malta will exceed the 9,000 tonne ceiling for sulphur dioxide and the 8,000 tonne ceiling for nitrogen oxides set by the National Emissions Ceilings Directive as amended by the Accession Treaty.

One has to note that these projections are based on calculations which have a margin of uncertainty. For example, the projected emissions of sulphur dioxide and oxides from the two power stations combined were estimated to be 9,170 tonnes. In fact in 2009 the actual emissions of sulphur dioxide from the two stations combined were 6,413 tonnes.

In order to allay certain concerns which might have been raised by this article over our local air quality, Mepa would also like to point out that as far as local air quality is concerned, the fixed monitoring stations in Msida, Żejtun, Kordin and Għarb have never recorded exceedances of either the hourly or the daily limit value of sulphur dioxide as per Directive 2008/50/EC. On the other hand they have registered an exceedance of the annual limit value for nitrogen dioxide in Msida.

This exceedance is attributable to the high traffic flows through this locality and should be tackled once the air quality plan (issued in January 2010) is effectively implemented. In this regard we confirm what we as an authority have on more than one occasion been previously stating, that ambient levels of particle matter is Malta's major air quality concern.