WRITTEN QUESTION P-3063/98

by Laura González Álvarez (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(2 October 1998)

Subject: Health problems caused by quarrying at Alhaurin de la torre (Málaga - Spain)

A total of eight quarries, some of them illegal, are operating at Alhaurin de la torre, Málaga. In addition to the severe damage they are inflicting on the environment, these quarries are giving rise to all kinds of ailments, allergies and respiratory diseases, mainly affecting children and the elderly.

A report by the Andalusian Health Service shows that the number of settleable particles, including silica, totals 908 milligrammes per square metre per day, whereas the maximum advisable levels should not exceed 150 milligrammes per square metre per day of suspended particulates.

1. Is the Commission aware of this situation?

2. What remedial measures does the Commission believe the Spanish authorities should adopt, in compliance with Community law on the environment and health protection, to eliminate the high levels of suspended particulates? Does the Commission not think that the general requirements laid down in Directive 96/61/EEC(1) on integrated pollution prevention and control should be fulfilled?

3. Does the Commission know whether an environmental impact assessment has been carried out in accordance with Directive 85/337/EEC(2) on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment?

4. Does the Commission not consider that the Spanish Government should make public the levels and values recorded and the duration of the periods of pollution in accordance with Directive 90/313/EEC(3) on freedom of access to information on the environment?

Answer given by Mrs Bjerregaard on behalf of the Commission

(1 December 1998)

The Commission is not familiar with the case in point.

Council Directive 80/779/EEC of 15 July 1980(4) (on air quality limit values and guide values for sulphur dioxide and suspended particulates) requires Member States to establish measuring stations for particulates suspended in air and to take appropriate measures to ensure that limit values are not exceeded. It is not possible to deduce from the data supplied by the Honourable Member whether or not the Directive's limit values have been exceeded, since they relate to deposited, rather than airborne, particles. A proposed Council Directive on limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead(5) in ambient air will set new, more stringent limit values for particulate matter, to be met by 2005. Member States will be required to prepare detailed action plans showing how the limit values are to be met in areas where air quality is poor.

Council Directive 96/61/CE of 24 September 1996 (concerning integrated pollution prevention and control) has to be transposed into the national legislation of the Member States by 1 November 1999 at the latest, so does not apply in the case in point.

The Commission does not know if the quarries in question have undergone the environmental impact evaluation procedure provided for by Council Directive 85/337/EEC of 27 June 1985 (on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment), Article 2 of which requires that "projects likely to have significant effects on the environment by virtue, inter alia, of their nature, size or location" undergo assessment as to their effects before they are given the go-ahead, the projects to which this requirement applies being defined in Annexes I and II to the same Directive. While lacking detailed information on the said quarries, the Commission imagines that they could well fall into several of the project categories listed in Annex II, i.e. those categories which, Article 4(2) of the Directive states, are to be made subject to an assessment "where Member States consider that their characteristics so require".

Article 3 of Council Directive 90/313/EEC of 7 June 1990 (on the freedom of access to information on the environment) requires public authorities to "make available information relating to the environment to any natural or legal person at his request and without his having to prove an interest". With only the facts mentioned by the Honourable Member to go on, the Commission cannot be categorical as to whether the Spanish authorities have responded inappropriately to a legitimate approach for information. (The only information that Member States are obliged to disclose automatically is the general information on the state of the environment which Article 7 states is to be supplied to the public "by such means as the periodic publication of descriptive reports".)

(1) OJ L 257, 10.10.1996, p. 40.

(2) OJ L 175, 5.7.1985, p. 48.

(3) OJ L 158, 23.6.1990, p. 58.

(4) OJ L 229, 30.8.1980.

(5) OJ C 259, 18.8.1998.