Prague, Dec 30 (CTK) – The Moravia-Silesia Region needs a general plan to limit traffic, improve household heating, make industrial plants more environment-friendly and reach agreement with Poland in order to lower the alarming pollution, a new Czech project has shown, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Wednesday.
Within the project, the Institute of Public Health in Ostrava, north Moravia, analysed large numbers of samples and data on air pollution.
The analysis confirmed that Polish industry and households affected the pollution, but it showed that local households and traffic in the towns situated on the main roads strongly influenced the pollution as well, the paper wrote.
The pollution in the Moravia-Silesia Region is mostly affected by road transport, local households and the Polish sources.
Lucie Hellebrandova, head of the Ostrava Institute of Public Health climate department, said Polish industrial production and Polish household heating were responsible for up to 37 percent of the emissions of the PM10 particulate matter.
Traffic is the dominant source of pollution near the main roads in the densely populated areas and it may be responsible for up to 49 percent of the PM10 emissions, Helebrandova told LN.
Ostrava-Poruba is such a case, she added.
The analysis, based on emission data from 2013, showed a big difference between the heating season and the non-heating season.
Industrial sources of emissions remain practically unchanged during the year, but the influence of household heating increases in winter.
Helebrandova said in some places, such as the Bruntal and Jablunkov areas, households may be responsible for up to 75 percent of the pollution.
The results of the analysis were welcomed by representatives of big factories.
Petr Holica, the region´s manager of the Czech Confederation of Industry, said industry was blamed for air pollution in the Moravia-Silesia Region the most in the last several years.
“The latest study shows that there are more polluters and that their influence varies in individual locations,” Holica said.
The analysis also indicated that the subsidy programme of replacing old boilers with more environment-friendly ones would not radically improve the situation, unless environment-friendly industrial measures, diversions of heavy traffic from towns and cooperation with Poland were agreed on, LN writes.
If wind is blowing from the Cracow industrial region, the emission concentrations of particulate matter go up. Several Czech-Polish projects for limiting air pollution have been planned, but they still need to win European subsidies to be implemented, the paper writes.
According to the analysis, traffic was the main source of pollution in the towns of Opava (58.7 percent), Frydek-Mistek (58.8) and in Ostrava-Poruba (37.9). Local households worsened the air quality the most in Bohumin (35.3), Havirov (35.3) and especially Karvina (41.6). Heavy industry was the biggest source of pollution in Ostrava-Radvanice (49.9) and Trinec (35.1). Polish industrial plants and households were responsible for about one sixth of the pollution in Poruba (18.9), Karvina (18.1), Havirov (15.4) and Opava (14.1).
