The levels of minute airborne pollutants recorded near the heavy fuel oil plant in Delimara were within EU limits, according to an air quality study carried out by an independent body.

Instead, the report by a British university attributed the occasional breaches in EU particulate level limits to regional sources including the Sahara desert, particularly on those days when the prevalent wind is from the south or southwest.

The conclusions appear to contradict claims made this time last year by the Labour Party which had vehemently campaigned against the use of heavy fuel oil, dubbing the Delimara BWSC plant as “a cancer factory”.

During a political activity in Marsaxlokk at the height of the election campaign a woman who lived near the Delimara plant recounted that her father, her sister and another relative had all died of cancer.

Though the government at the time had repeatedly denied such claims, saying that there was no link between the two, Labour leader Joseph Muscat claimed otherwise.

“I insist that power stations that work with heavy fuel oil are factories of cancer and asthma. This is not a matter of numbers but people’s experiences. It’s not on that we keep this technology that is not acceptable on an environmental and health level,” Dr Muscat had said during a news conference.

Still, the Labour government last September opted to carry on using heavy fuel oil rather than choose the cleaner option of diesel, until next year when the entire plant is set to be converted to gas.

Asked for his reaction in the wake of this report Environment Minister Leo Brincat yesterday dodged questions on Labour’s cancer claim, saying it was an undisputed fact that gas was cleaner for the environment than heavy fuel oil.

“We stand by our pre-electoral commitment to go for far cleaner power generation at Delimara at the earliest possible, particularly from the environmental health perspective,” Mr Brincat said.

The air quality report was published yesterday by the planning authority as part of public consultation taking place in line with the conditions of the environmental permit for the plant granted in December 2011.

Following this consultation period, which closes on March 12, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority must take a final decision on the use of HFO.

We stand by our commitment to go for far cleaner power generation

However, with the government planning to convert the BWSC Delimara plant to a much cleaner form of fuel – liquefied natural gas – the decision will have little bearing in the long term.

Following a tendering process, the Air Quality Management Resource Centre at the University of the West of England, Bristol, was commissioned to carry out a six-month monitoring process, which took place between December 2012 and last June.

The objective of the study was to assess whether the operation of the eight diesel engines running on heavy fuel oil at the Delimara power station was contributing towards exceedances of the air quality limit values established under the law.

The report says that from a baseline analysis of all available data gathered between 2009 and 2012, there was no evidence to suggest that the old Delimara plant was contributing to elevated concentrations of particulate matter, whether at Birżebbuġa or at Marsaxlokk.

The report remarked that during the post-commissioning period of the BWSC extension, there were potential exceed­ances of the annual mean limit value for one type of particulate matter, technically referred to as PM10, at Msida, Birżebbuġa and Marsaxlokk.

Though data collected through low volume samplers would corroborate this, data gathered through the so-called “beta attenuation monitors” did not yield such results. The report suggested that such discrepancies could be attributed to overreading by the low volume monitors.

Nevertheless the permitted 35 exceedances of the daily mean in a calendar year were not breached at any site. In addition there was no indication that these additional exceedances could be associated with dust emissions for the power station extension, the report said.

In his initial reaction, Marsaxlokk mayor Edric Micallef said the fact no exceedances were recorded did not necessarily imply that particulate matter levels were low.

“It could still be the case that the plant contributed to an increase particulate matter but these remained just within the EU limits,” he argued.

However he said that in the wake of the government’s decision to convert the Delimara plant to liquefied natural gas, this entire debate could well be considered as “superfluous”.

The PN said the report was further confirmation that the Labour Party had sought to deceive the people before the general election.

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