€400 million invested to protect Campo de Gibraltar environment

(Agencies) On a recent visit to the CdeG, the Junta's Councillor for the Environment, Cinta Castillo (photo), announced that the area's businesses had invested close to €400 million to protect the region's environment. These included measures to stem fugitive emissions and the use of cleaner fuels, as well as longer-term social and research projects. She also pointed to investments in real-time monitoring of air quality and a drop in emissions of benzene and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere in the Campo area, the  industrial complex of which contributes over 10% to the GDP of Cádiz province and generates 30,000 jobs.

However, there have been many demands over the years for a conclusive epidemiological study of the area; environmentalists blame local health problems on emissions from heavy industry in the Campo (See JimenaPulse item here). Another environmental concern is >
bunkering, carried out at Gibraltar as well as Algeciras Port, which Agaden and Verdemar-Ecologistas en Acción say have caused some twenty significant oil spillages since 2007.

A spokesperson for Verdemar-Ecologistas en Acción says that Castillo's reported advances on her department's Plan de Calidad (Quality Plan) is 'far from a reality'. He adds, "she speaks of transparency but when oil rained on Puente Mayorga in September 2008, the department's website, which is supposed to inform on air quality in real time, was unavailable for several days."