According to the information provided by the Environment Directorate of the Basque Government on its website, the air quality control measuring booth on Estraperlo street has experienced problems during the summer. For example, from 15 to 22 July, no measurement of any parameter has been received on the website. At present, rainfall measurements are not yet received. In addition, the measuring cabinet has not yet measured a number of parameters expressly requested by the City Council of Usurbil: O3, BTEX and PM2.5 for example (see: Udalberri No. 14, pages 6 and 7)

The company Ekondakin Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A., created for the construction and management of the incinerator, has installed in Zubieta, Lasarte-Oria, Andoain and Usurbil measurement booths for the control of air quality around the incinerator, fulfilling the requirements established by the Environment Directorate of the Basque Government.

The need to install measurement cabins for air quality control is determined in the Resolution of 23 April 2010 of the Deputy Environmental Minister of the Basque Government, granting the company Waste Management de Gipuzkoa, S.A.U. integrated environmental authorisation for incinerators (see URL0)

The section of the Integrated Environmental Authorization Environmental Monitoring Program on the control of atmospheric inmissions states:

"F.3.- Control of atmospheric inmissions.

Air quality controls shall be carried out in the vicinity of the installation on a continuous basis through the measuring rooms or through measurement campaigns.

The measurement campaigns shall have before the day a full measurement programme, at least for 18 months before the start of the energy recovery facility, enabling the evolution of air quality during the operation of the facility to be compared.

Within six months of the date of this Resolution, the promoter shall prepare and submit to this Vice-Ministry of the Environment, for approval, a proposal to monitor the impact of the activity on the environment. The proposal shall include the phase and phase of work prior to the start of the work, an analysis of the location of the proposed measuring rooms and a maintenance plan.

The parameters to be measured shall be at least NOx, particles, HCl, COT, SO2, O3 and occasionally HF and heavy metals."

As set out in the integrated environmental authorisation, in the monitoring proposal developed by the GHK, the measuring booth to be installed in the municipality of Usurbil proposed measuring the following parameters: NOX, PM10 and meteorological control.

For its part, the City of Usurbil asked to measure more parameters. Among others: O3, BTEX and PM 2.5. The City Hall of Lasarte-Oria also made a similar request for the measuring booth to be installed in Lasarte-Oria. But the GHK refused. After more than a year of incidents, GHK finally surrendered and awarded on 15 March 2019 the contract to supply additional elements to be included in the Lasarte-Oria and Usurbil air quality measurement booths (see URL0).

The City Hall authorized the installation of the measuring booth in January 2019 and the works were carried out in February-March by EKONDAKIN ENERGIA Y AMBIENTE S.A. The first data available on the website of the Environment Directorate of the Basque Government date back to 13 April 2019 and corresponds to a few parameters. To date, the measurements of the parameters requested by the City Hall are not available, even in relation to rainfall.

Status of other measuring booths installed:

Lasarte-Oria: first measurements of May 4, 2018. Additional parameter measurements are not yet available.

Andoain: first measurements on April 4, 2018.

Zubieta: first measurements of all parameters on 1 June 2018.

The information provided by the Environment Directorate of the Basque Government on its website is available on the following link: euskadi.eus/CalidadAireWar.

The Environment Deputy and Chairman of the Gipuzkoa Waste Consortium, José Ignacio Asensio, announced last Friday that in mid-October they will start burning waste in the incinerator.

According to the Usurbil measuring cabinet, incinerator start-up should be delayed by a further year

This would not be possible if the conditions laid down in the integrated environmental authorisation granted by the Basque Government were taken into account. In fact, before the incinerator was launched by the Basque Government, as it provides for air quality control of at least 18 months, and in the case of Usurbil, this control has been initiated on 13 April 2019 (without measurement of all parameters). Therefore, taking into account the provisions of the integrated environmental authorisation, according to the Usurbil measuring cabinet, the incinerator should be set up a further year. In other words, it would not be possible to start before November 2020.