Weiß calls for more official measuring points for ultrafine particulate matter | Citizens' event explains the issue

At the same time, the city of Mühlheim has proposed that the cities of Offenbach, Mühlheim and Hanau purchase a joint ultra-fine dust measuring device.

Nevertheless, Weiß is fundamentally opposed to each affected municipality purchasing and measuring its own devices. "Experience with our own noise measurements in the past has shown," Weiß explains, "that the ministries, state offices and courts do not accept measurement results from non-official bodies, especially as they rarely meet quality standards. And if they are supposed to meet these standards, they are very expensive."

Weiß therefore suggested to Mühlheim's Mayor Daniel Tybussek and the Mayor of Hanau, Claus Kaminsky, that the cities of Offenbach, Hanau and Mühlheim refrain from purchasing a joint measuring device and instead lobby the Hessian Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Agriculture and Consumer Protection for measuring points in flyover areas that meet the quality standards. "It is necessary to expand testing activities in order to investigate the size distribution of ultra-fine dust; further measuring points do not necessarily have to be in Offenbach, they can also be set up in Hanau, Mühlheim or Neu-Isenburg," says Weiß. Above all, measurements in overflight areas are important, taking into account the main wind direction - in Offenbach and the neighboring municipalities from southwest to northeast. The respective current flight operation directions should also be included in these measurements.

Councillor Weiß will also put the topic back on the agenda at one of the next aircraft noise commission meetings.

In a two-hour panel discussion at the end of November at the Ostpol start-up campus, organized by the Airport Department and the Citizens' Initiative for Air Traffic in Offenbach (BIL), the Head of Air Pollution Control and Emissions at the Hessian State Office, Prof. Dr. Stefan Jacobi, and the representatives of the Ultrafine Dust Working Group in the alliance of citizens' initiatives, Wolfgang Schwämmlein and Joachim Alt, introduced the topic.

Ultrafine dust is a mixture of substances with different chemical and physical properties whose diameter is less than 100 nanometers. The EU has limit values for larger dust particles with diameters of 10 and 2.5 micrometers, but not for ultrafine particles.

It became clear that a possible health risk from ultrafine particulate matter in aircraft exhausts is the subject of controversial debate, based on the fact that the results of investigations over a two-year period were assessed differently by Prof. Dr. Jacobi and Mr. Alt and Mr. Schwämmlein.

According to the two experts from the citizens' initiatives, there is clear evidence that the smallest dust particles are highly harmful to health. For them, it is also clear that aircraft emit many ultra-fine particles and therefore pose a particular hazard. "The measurements taken by the state office clearly show the direct link between flight operations and exposure to ultrafine particles under the approach routes," Alt stated. "The pollution comes directly from the aircraft and is pushed downwards by wake vortices, i.e. into the residential areas."

Jacobi did not want to leave it at that - although the UFP concentration at the Raunheim measuring station close to the airport is higher than in other urban areas, both on average and in extreme cases, it is hardly significantly higher than at locations with road traffic.

"The aim is therefore to substantiate the different positions with data and facts," concludes Head of Department Weiß. He calls for "a network of measuring points in the form of a measuring network at the Hessian State Office for Nature Conservation, Environment and Geology, which evaluates the information regionally and then makes it available to the local authorities concerned. With this comprehensive data material on EIA distribution and further findings on the effects on human health, there is then a better chance of demanding limit or threshold values from the federal legislator or even in the EU".