The APB requests access to GOB studies on the impact of cruise ships to improve environmental management at ports

The APB requests access to GOB studies on the impact of cruise ships to improve environmental management at ports

Palma

10/04/2018

The president of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB), Joan Gual de Torrella, has sent a letter to the president of the Balearic Group of Ornithology (GOB), Andreu Corberà, requesting access to their environmental impact studies of cruise ships. The APB intends to use this unknown data and incorporate it, where possible, into the conclusions of several studies that the Authority currently has underway.

In the letter, the APB president writes "it has been reported in the media that your organisation has published data on the power consumption of cruise ships, comparing it with the electricity usage of certain localities and the other major infrastructure in the region, Son Sant Joan Airport". Therefore, Gual asks the GOB to share "the studies that contain the data you have released".

Joan Gual de Torrella uses the letter as an opportunity to explain the actions that the APB Quality and Innovation Department has been carrying out for several months to obtain as many indicators as possible with a view to implementing both preventive and corrective measures against the environmental impact of port activity. "A complex task given that the wide range of factors and stakeholders that are simultaneously involved must be coordinated in order to obtain the results required" Gual claims.

More specifically, he is referring to the study that the APB is carrying out in conjunction with the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) to measure the air and noise pollution at the Port of Palma. It involves using a network of sensors installed around the port to help analyse the environmental impact caused by port activity. The results of this study will be determined this summer once all the indicators and acoustic and pollution samples from one full year have been collected.

Gual ends his letter stating that the incorporation of this data into current APB studies will boost "progress towards identifying the best environmental management solutions possible to implement at the port".