The measurement that the Department of Climate Action of the Generalitat has carried out between November 8, 2021 and January 25, 2022. in the Paseo Antonio Machado in the neighborhood of La Catalana, in Sant Adrià de Besòs, in At the request of the City Council itself, it establishes that in no case are the reference pollution values legislated by the European Union exceeded.
To carry out the measurements, a mobile unit has been used to evaluate pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), tropospheric ozone (O3) , particles with a diameter of less than 10 microns (PM10), benzene (C6H6), heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The results are that during the campaign period "the legislated reference values have not been exceeded".
The mobile unit has taken samples near the main activities and traffic routes near the Besòs neighborhood, such as the B-10 located at 280 meters, the C-31 at 780 meters, the Tersa incinerator at 534 meters , the Ecoparc at 340 meters and the different areas of the Besòs Combined Cycle Thermal Power Plant which are at a distance of between 373 and 445 meters away.
The Director General of Environmental Quality and Climate Change of the Generalitat, Marc Sanglas, has presented the report of results of the campaign together with the Councilor for Climate Emergency of Barcelona, Eloi Badia; the manager of the Barcelona Public Health Agency (ASPB), Carme Borrell, and the third deputy mayor of Sant Adrià, Ruth Soto.
Sanglas has assured that the control of air quality over the Barcelona metropolitan area and the special protection zones "is constant", with 25 measurement points, a network that he has highlighted is much more extensive than what the directive establishes European.
Likewise, he has sent a message of calm to the residents of the area and has recognized that although the quality of the air "can be improved" it is not worse than that of Besòs when compared to other parts of the country.
For his part, Eloi Badia, has stressed that "we are expeditious and act to detect anomalies as quickly as possible" in an environment where "a lot of anguish" can be generated, he said in reference to the lawsuit filed by the environmental entity Airenet. On this aspect, the Barcelona councilor stressed that "it is not a lawsuit for damage to public health, but for a risk issue due to the formulas used to measure temperatures" in the Tersa energy recovery plant.
The presentation of this report coincides with the open case for alleged ecological crime of the Sant Adrià de Besòs waste incinerator, managed by the public company Tersa, on which Sanglas has refused to comment and has assured that the Department of Climate Action has contributed all the data that has been claimed from them by the court.
The Tersa incinerator has also issued a statement in which it recalls the existence of other studies carried out that rule out that the recovery plant poses a risk to health and the environment. It refers to those issued by the Public Health Agency of Barcelona (ASPB) and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) whose two analyzes concluded that the recovery plant "does not have a relevant impact on health and the environment". In addition, from the company they remember that since 2021 a new catalytic system has been launched that allows reducing NOx (nitrogen oxides) emissions by up to 50%.
