Severe Air Pollution in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
The air is thick with hot greyish vapor of sulphur dioxide, WECF partner Earth Forever Foundation rings the alarm bell
18.07.2005 |Diana Iskreva
For a third day already the people of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria do not dare to breath as the air is think with hot grayish vapor of sulphur dioxide, the teeth crunch of the acidic taste of the air... And the lungs of our children? Mothers do not dare even to think what happens with the tender bronchia of their exposed children. Mothers could not ask their children to stop breathing until the deadly cloud pass away... going to places where other mothers faint in helplessness to protect their children.
The authorities are supposed to inform us - the citizens, since Saturday that we have to stop breathing as breathing proved to be extremely dangerous for our health. They inform us via mass media: the late TV news on Saturday informed us that we had made an enormous mistake to be carelessly breathing between 18:00 and 19:00 pm as the concentration of sulphur dioxide in ambient air reached 492 micro grams per cubic meter - 1.5 times above the level of alarm and 20 times above the norm. The next day, we were informed (drastically late again!) that the concentration of sulphur dioxide reached 474 micro grams per cubic meter of ambient air.
Today at 15:00 the concentration of sulphur dioxide reached the deadly pick of 834 micro grams per cubic meter of Ambient Air (!) in Radnevo. The deadly cloud reached Stara Zagora later on and the air was even more thick with contamination than any other day before at about 18:00 - 19:00. I suppose, the authorities will inform us in the late TV news that we were really crazy to bread at that time! The lethal doze is 1000 micro grams per cubic meter. Damn close!
Are authorities waiting for this lethal doze to be accumulated before they take measures against the polluters: Briket - Galabovo (working with 100% of its capacity), Thermal Power Station Maritsa-Iztok 2 (working with 56% of its capacity) and Thermal Power Station Maritsa-Iztok 3 (working with 75% of its capacity). Producing profit for their owners in this high speed, these companies emit in the atmosphere some 2,160 tonnes of sulphur dioxide each 24 hours.
The Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water is obviously helpless to stop the pollution. The penalties are obviously tiny compared to the profit, tiny even if we add the health threat to more than 300,000 people in the municipalities of Stara Zagora, Radnevo and Galabovo.
Diana Iskreva
Executive Director
NGO Earth Forever
Kiril i Methody, 77a, apt. 27
Stara Zagora 6000
Bulgaria
Phone: +359 897 801179
