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Pollution blamed in 12,400 deaths

New ministry report cites coal heat and vehicle emissions

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 19th, 2007 issue

A new Environmental Ministry report paints a dismal picture of the state of the air in the Czech Republic. Findings indicate that the nation’s air quality is in marked decline, prompting officials to look for solutions.
“Unfortunately, there is no doubt that air pollution is the biggest problem of the Czech environment. All the available data confirm this. Polluted air has very specific health consequences,” Environmental Minister Martin Bursík said in a press release dated Dec. 17, when the report was released.
Perhaps most shocking among these is the ministry’s figure that as many as 12,400 people die every year because of smog. That would mean that 13 percent of the nation’s death rate is attributable to polluted air.
In villages, the use of coal to heat homes also contributes significantly to air pollution, the report finds. Overall, motor vehicle and home heating emissions were the biggest sources of pollution in the country.
The situation is the worst in the Ostrava-Karviná area of the Moravian-Silesian region, because of factors such as mining and fuel industries, emissions from Poland, and car exhaust. Prague and the Ústecký region and south Moravia were also noted for bad air quality.
“One of the specific problems of the Czech Republic is the high age of cars and also the dramatic increase in truck transportation since we joined the European Union,” the ministry press release states. “Motor vehicle transit and household heating can be even bigger problems since their emissions are not regulated (in contrast to big industrial factories).”
The result is that the Czech Republic falls short of both its own emission standards and those set by the EU, according to the ministry.
A possible solution would be to introduce tolls on first-class roads, which would encourage train use, and introduce emission requirements for small sources of pollution such as heating stoves. Those requirements could be in place by 2014, the same year the ministry would like to see the use of low-quality coal stopped.
The ecology tax reform would also apply extra tax on “dirty” fuel, to discourage its use. To further help clear the air, the ministry last week launched a Web site, www.env.cz/vytapeni with information about the current state of the air and tips that households and cities can use to improve it.
— Nad’a Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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