Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco told Parliament yesterday that analysis by the Malta Centre for Restoration at Bighi and the University of Malta showed that the latest samples of black dust collected from Fgura last August were similar to dust collected from Msida.

Introducing the five-hour debate Dr de Marco said that everyone was conscious that traffic was a source of pollution in the country. He announced also that the government had commissioned Prof. Alfred Vella from the University to give assistance on the matter. His report was to be concluded soon.

He said that pollution emanated from natural sources and man-made activities. Natural sources included dust gathered on windy days and aerosol from the sea. Mepa had a number of monitoring stations to measure air quality.

Transport, the generation of electricity, the construction and other industries contributed to air pollution. For these reasons the government had invested in new technology for the generation of electricity with the closing down of the Marsa power station and the extension of the Delimara plant.

Another government project for cleaner air was the investment in the interconnector between Malta and Italy.

The transport reform focussed on cleaner and more efficient use of public transport with fewer cars on the road, said Dr de Marco.

Mepa had also taken action to introduce best practices in construction operations. The authority used monitoring instruments similar to those used in other European countries which measured only a fraction of all dust particles. These instruments measured dust which was hazardous to health because they penetrated the lungs and the blood system. This kind of dust caused respiratory diseases and sometimes cancer.

There were stations in Msida, Kordin, Żejtun and Għarb to measure this dust. Most of this dust related to transport activities. Fgura was an area with a lot of traffic activity. It was also situated near the Grand Harbour, three industrial zones, the Marsa power station, the incinerator and a number of steel scrap yards.

Dr de Marco said that discussions with Mepa showed that there was more than one source for the black dust in Fgura. A fraction, called resuspended particles, came from traffic emissions. The Marsa conventional power station and the scrap yards also contributed.

The black dust problem was more acute in the summers of 2007, 2009 and 2010, although the problem had started in 1996.

Experts who were commissioned to make analysis of this dust had, in 2000, concluded that the Fgura position was different from that of Sliema and Dingli and was likely to be influenced by the Marsa power station. The dust was darker in colour and coarser than that collected in Sliema and Dingli. In January of that year, Enemalta had switched on precipitators while it changed to cleaner technology in 2004.

Analysis of the dust collected in 2007, when there were a lot of complaints, showed that it did not result neither from the grit blasting used for ship maintenance nor from the incinerator or soot from vehicles. Analysis did not show any traces of vanidium, nickel oxide or magnesium which are components in fly ash as emitted by the power station. Samples collected from Tarxien in 2009 gave similar results. This meant that there was no certainty that the Marsa power station was the source of black dust.

The government, Dr de Marco said, was not trying to minimise the problem and it was everyone’s duty to seek its source and tackle it.