Black dust complaints: No increase in power station emissions - Enemalta

Enemalta said today that dust emissions from all the chimneys at Marsa Power station have remained substantially constant over the past six months and were well within the stipulated emissions limits.

Reacting to comments by the Mayor of Tarxien who indicated the power station as being to blame for the reappearance of soot-like black dust in the locality, the corporation said there had been no operational changes or breakdownsover the past weeks which could have resulted in the kind of increase in dust deposits which were being alleged.

"The dust is described as being gritty. Dust from the power station chimney is a fine dust and not 'gritty' so if it is gritty and can be felt underfoot, it is not from the power station. If there were any heavy particles, they would drop down close to the chimney, not be carried towards Tarxien. There has not been any significant change in the last week's operations which would result in there being significantly more dust emissions. It is possible that there could have been a temperature inversion which could have deflected the plume towards the ground, but this is not a typical weather condition and would usually only last a day or less. As anyone can see, just by looking at the chimneys, there are no clouds of black smoke being emitted by us," Enemalta said.

Enemalta said it monitors dust emissions continuously.