Reference is made to last Sunday’s (9 May) editorial entitled “Something truly rotten from the state of Denmark” where you quote a figure that was mentioned in a recent meeting organised by the Asthmatic Society. At this meeting, one of the speakers present, Professor Stephen Montfort, was quoted as saying that the dust particles in Malta resulting from traffic pollution and power generation installations is 37 times higher than the norm.

The Authority would like to draw your attention to the fact that this statement is incorrect and wide off the mark.

While Mepa is continuously monitoring the concentration of dust particles in the air, results clearly show that out of the four air monitoring stations situated in Msida, Gharb, Zejtun and Kordin, only the Msida air monitoring station registered a number of exceedances greater than the standard permitted by the EU Air Quality Directive. The Directive sets a daily limit value of 50 µg/m3 and allows a maximum of 35 exceedances of the daily limit value per calendar year.

It is also pertinent to note that using satellite imagery, the Authority found that 31 per cent of the exceedances that were recorded in Msida were due to Sahara dust intrusions. Taking these natural exceedances into account, this means that the daily limit value in Msida exceeded the EU Directive 36 times, which is one more exceedance than the number permitted by the Directive. Added to this, being an island, Malta also receives a non-negligible contribution of dust particles from sea-spray.

The Authority has not stood idly by on this matter over the past months, but has, with the co-operation of MITC, launched an air quality plan for the Maltese Islands in which a number of concrete measures are identified with the aim of lowering the 36 exceedances as much as possible.

This plan can be viewed at http://www.mepa.org.mt/air-publications.

Peter Gingell

Communications Office

MEPA