THE ENVIRONMENT BY LUIS

Hello classmates,

I´m doing an Environmental Course, thus I am going to tell you some things that seem to me quite important:

• I went to visit a Meteorological Station. In short they said to us:
•  Zaragoza was one of the first  cities in Spain which had meteorological stations. Every 15 minutes they control gases which are harmful for the people such as sulfur dioxides, monoxides, ozone... and if there is a very high figure they report it to their central station. For example, if Torrespapel (the paper mill in Montañana) sends out a harmful gas at a high amount, they know it and they see it in Jaime Ferran's meteorological station. We can see it,  too.  Just click here
• The World Health Organization (WHO) did a report about the cities with the worst quality of air, and according to the 2008 database, Zaragoza was one of the worst. That was because Zaragoza in the year 2008 had a lot of construction because of the International Exhibition "Water and Sustainable Development" and also because other cities like Madrid or Barcelona didn't give real  figures.
• Besides they said to us that according to weather forecast patterns it only can be predicted for 3 days and according  to that a prediction bigger than 3 days is just  simple guessing. Also they said to us that the weather cycle can be repeated every 4 years and  not every year as it was said on TV.

• Another day we went to visit the Hydrographical Confederation of the Ebro river (CHE). In short they said to us:
• The watershed of the Ebro river is made up of nine autonomous communities (Cantabria, Pais Vasco, Castilla y Leon, La Rioja, Navarra, Castilla la Mancha, Aragon, Comunidad Valenciana y Cataluña) and also the countries, France and Andorra. But CHE only controls Spain.
• They supervise the water in watersheds by means of measuring instruments. According to this measures they can know the temperature, rain or snow and they can predict floods or regulate the water in reservoirs.
• Also they give permission to factories to flow into river harmful products in few amounts but they do careful inspections for that.

• And finally we went to see Torrespapel. In short they said to us:
• We see the factory and they said to us that they are reducing pollution as they follow the law and regulations. For example they are doing a new water-treatment plant.
• For doing cellulose they use chemical products which inevitably give off odour and a strong smell and because of that it is impossible to avoid that odour although they are decreasing it
• Also they have control in CHE and INAGA ( the State Aragonese Environmental Management System)

I hope that it has been interesting. And to finish it, I have some questions for you:

• Did you know what was "CHE" and "WHO"?
• What do you think about floods? Can people control them?
• Do you think the Torrespapel factory smell better now?