The Croatian Environment Protection Ministry issued a lengthy statement on Sunday afternoon to warn against the misinterpretations of the data from the air quality monitoring station in Slavonski Brod after the authorities of that eastern Croatian town reported about what they interpreted as excessive amounts of air pollutants in the recent days and after they called on the ministry and other relevant Croatian institutions to do immediately something to put an and on air contamination caused by the oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, the Bosnian town across the River Sava.
The ministry said in its statement that misinterpretations were made in the presentation of the air quality data in the recent days as only the current figures were given in public, while the Air Quality Act envisages that the air quality should be assessed based on data collected during at least one year with the average assessment taking into consideration.
The town authorities reported that the local air quality monitoring station recorded 16.4 micrograms of this substance per cubic metre of air at one moment on Sunday morning , while the upper allowable limit is 5 micrograms per cubic metre. Later in the morning the concentration of this cancerogenous air pollutant was lowered but it was still above the acceptable levels, according to the town authorities.
The ministry responds that there is the professional term "annual mean limit value" and it is a set limit value for benzene (C6H6) for the protection of human health: the annual mean value may not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic metre (?g/m3).
The ministry went on to say that the annual concentration of benzene in Slavonski Brod was 2.28 micrograms per cubic metre in 2011, which was, it stressed, far below the set limit value. Furthermore, the mean value of benzene in the period from January to August 2012, was 1.34 ?g/m3, and in October the monthly mean concentration was 2.24 ?g/m3, which is why the ministry expects the air quality in this town to remain in the first category this year, as regards benzene.
The ministry also reported that in the last four months since Minister Mihael Zmajlovic stepped into office, measures have been taken for the permanent solution to the problem of pollution of the air in Slavonski Brod, caused by the work of the refinery in the town of Bosanski Brod, in the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Also, the ministry has received reassurances from the oil refinery management that the plant will be closed for the annual overhaul from 10 November to 31 December, as this winter period is the most critical with other sources of pollution being more active than usual.
