24 Jun 2017  |   12:54am IST

Mining cos rope in IIT for air quality monitoring

Team Herald

PANJIM: Reeling under criticism of polluting the villages, the mining companies- dissatisfied with the ambient air quality monitoring by the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB)- has roped in Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad for identifying the main source of emission along the iron ore transportation routes, passing through villages.

The Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association (GMOEA), an umbrella organization of ore exporters has approached Indian Institutive of Technology-ISM to visit all the iron ore mining clusters and familiarize with the transport routes to collect background information on details of sources and emission.

The mining industry had recently came into sharp criticism following protest by Sonshi villagers in Sattari taluka over the increasing dust pollution in their locality due to transportation of iron ore. The mining firms and the GSPCB were at the loggerheads over higher pollution reading.

The Board had found six clusters include-Codli, Dharbandora, Suctolim, Sigao, Sonshi and Usgao as the most polluting clusters indicating PM10 (dust pollution) exceeding its limit from the months of October 2016 to March 2017. Accordingly, the Board had declined to renew the consent to operate of 32 mining firms in April, with situation continuing till date.

The Board found discrepancy in the readings of the stations installed by them and the mining companies at Sonshi. Accordingly, the mining firms in their representation to the Board had said that only an independent agency could give a true picture of air quality in these clusters. To which, the Board agreed to.

“The suggestion from the mining firms was to have an independent institution prepare a framework on ambient air quality monitoring,” GMOEA secretary Glen Kalavampar said.

The ISM has been asked to provide information on number and distribution of sources should be collected. This includes meteorological data with respect to temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction should be collected and topographical Information. The ISM has been suggested to use the previous information collected on ambient air quality for selecting areas, where monitoring should be conducted.

ISM has to also suggest the number and distribution of monitoring locations. The distribution of the monitoring locations should deliver the objective of capturing the ambient air quality around the mines buffer zones and transport routes and offer Comparability of the monitoring locations.