The four air monitoring stations which determine the concentration levels of most air pollutants every 15 minutes are located in accordance and as regulated by the EU directive on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority said.
It said in a statement that the directive clearly regulated the minimum number and siting of fixed air monitoring stations in each member state.
The authority denied that air monitoring stations were ‘placed incorrectly’ and not giving data of the real situation as alleged by the non-governmental organisation Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħar, Friends of the Earth and Ramblers’ Association.
Mepa, which is the competent authority responsible for the monitoring of air pollution in ambient outdoor air and for coordinating policy measures, said it also based the siting of the stations - three in Malta and one in Gozo, upon the recommendations made in a report prepared by consultants Stacey and Bush, who, in 2002, were appointed by the government to carry out a preliminary assessment of air quality in Malta.
The authority was also guided by the macroscale siting criteria of the Ambient Air Quality Directive.
It said that for these reasons and logistical purposes, it sited the traffic station in Msida, the urban background station in Zejtun, the station influenced by the plume of the Marsa Power Station at the Corradino Industrial Estate and the background site in the Malta zone in Gharb.
The authority also carries out air quality monitoring through diffusion tube network which was introduced in 2004 for a better spatial coverage over the Maltese Islands. This network includes 44 localities amounting to 131 monitoring sites in Malta and Gozo. All air monitoring results are publicly available on Mepa’s website.
Mepa said it was in the National interest that Malta had reported to the European Commission the outcome of scientific studies which clearly showed that 22 out of the 52 exceedances registered by the Msida station in 2008, were attributable to natural causes.
The authority was not trying to make any kind of excuses or ‘taking the easy way out’ but needed to notify the Commission that certain exceedances were the cause of natural and transboundary sources for which Malta had no control. The methodology applied for deducting these natural and trasboundary sources, was as suggested and regulated by the European Commission.
Mepa said it was still committed to implement the Air Quality Plan for the Maltese Islands which outlined policy measures to address man-made pollution sources, namely in the transport, power generation, construction and small industry sectors.
The authority this year also secured over €4.9 million to finance a project that would radically improving the national environmental monitoring capacity in five environmental themes – air, water, radiation, noise, and soil.
Last month, the authority launched a new environmental permitting system for all the quarries in Malta and Gozo to increase the standards of environment compliance within the industry that would include addressing the problems of high dust levels these plants generated.
The authority remained totally committed to ensure that air quality in Malta was clean. It would continue with its efforts to minimise the impact that human activity constituted towards the deterioration of air quality through measures that were based on sustainable concepts and practices.