To keep air quality under control, an environmental management system has been developed for air quality at Muuga Harbour, on the basis of which the operational management of the loading process takes place to ensure that the values established for pollutants are met on the boundaries of the port territory. If the hourly or daily average concentrations of the measured components exceed the allowable limit, email alerts are sent automatically to the Environmental Inspectorate, the Environmental Board, the Viimsi and Jõelähtme municipality governments, the City of Maardu and the relevant personnel at the Port of Tallinn as well as to all handlers of petroleum products who are obliged to apply requirements established for the quality of ambient air.

Starting in spring 2016, the e-Nose (e-Ninad) network has also been installed in the Muuga Harbour area, which consists of 21 odour sensors and supplements the air quality monitoring system hitherto in use. The sensor system makes it possible to get additional information about which of the companies (including ones outside Muuga Harbour) the gas mixtures came from, so that the companies handling the petroleum products would be able to more quickly adopt measures to minimize odour nuisances. An analogous system has operated at the harbour in Rotterdam in cooperation between Royal Vopak and Comon Invent for already 10 years and during that time, people’s complaints have decreased by a factor of 30. The e-Nose project was initiated as part of a working group acting to improve air quality in the area. It is a joint project between the Port of Tallinn and the oil terminals operating at Muuga Harbour, the Estonian Environmental Research Centre, the Ministry of the environment, the Environmental Board and the Environmental Inspectorate.

The hourly average measurement results at the monitoring stations are publicly available on the Estonian Environment Research Centre website at: http://airviro.klab.ee/