APCOM

It's a smog crisis: Milano exceeded 35 times European Union pollution's limits and is now an outlaw city. This happens although City Council approved last January the "Eco Pass" traffic charge. It wasn't enough: Milano regularly features on satellite projections as one of the most polluted cities in Europe.

Arpa, the regional agency for environmental protection, detected alarming pm10 levels in the Città Studi borough: Thursday dust particles were 165 micrograms for cubic meter, while Eu threshold value is fixed at 50 micrograms. Meteorological condition contributed to raise the pollution levels, but environmentalist associations in town are already alerted.

Today Legambiente gave the Major Letizia Moratti the "Mal'Aria" (bad air) certificate, asking "urgent measures" to solve the situation such as traffic blocks. But City Council doesn't seem very worried about it and announced that Milano's pollution situation is now better than before. Edoardo Croci, Traffic assessor, said that Eco Pass caused a 22% reduction of pm10 concentration in the critic area Milano-Como-Sempione.

"First 52 days of 2008 - explained Croci - were the less polluted since 2002 and we reached the 35th limit violation day later than last year". In 2007 Milano exceeded Eu limits 35 times on 15 February, while in 2008 this happened the 23 of February. But this is not enough and Milano's Observatory is very critic about Eco Pass: "With the traffic charge the situation is worse than ever. Every day 1.150 cars drive more kilometres to avoid paying the traffic fee, causing more pollution".