Jubail opens air monitoring stations

The Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) has established nine stations to monitor air quality in Jubail’s Industrial City. The stations will also be used for meteorological purposes.
These stations will measure elements in the air, such as sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide. The nine stations were distributed equally in order to cover Jubail Industrial City and other industrial areas.
This initiative come as part of the commission’s continuous efforts for environmental preservation, which has earned it several awards, including the Sasakawa International Environmental Prize from the United Nations, an environmental prize from the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment in Kuwait, an environmental safety award from the Arab Town Organization, which was held in Qatar, and most recently, a Saudi award for best environmental management application in the region.
Data on air quality is collected from these nine stations every five minutes and sent directly to a central computer using advanced wireless devices, which is reviewed and analyzed by a crew of specialists in order to ascertain air quality and meteorology at any given time.
The RCJY has also identified several sites to monitor water quality at beaches and harbors near Jubail’s Industrial City through a program that provides comprehensive information about its composition.
The RCJY also applies a comprehensive program to monitor groundwater at industrial sites, including hazardous material storage sites, industrial waster management facilities and landfills, to prevent the deterioration of its safety standards as a result of the increase of industrial activities.
This is in addition to monitoring petrochemical tanks for leakages.
The commission also maintains the consistency of seawater temperatures during cooling operations by ensuring that the temperature of the water being released from the factory is no warmer than 10 degrees celsius from the water coming in.
The RCJY also monitors industrial complexes and prohibits the discharging of wastewater into the sea. Instead, it ensures that factories send their wastewater to specialized stations for three-fold processing.
The RCJY also applies the laws and standards of the World Health Organization and US Agency for Environmental Protection on programs related to monitoring the quality of drinking water.
Jubail Industrial City depends mainly on seawater and groundwater desalination for drinking. The city consumes 212,000 cm of water per day, of which 56,000 cm per day is used in residential areas.
The commission has also come up with a program on noise control to prevent conditions such as deafness and fetal malformation.
The Royal Commission’s Environmental Safety and Control Department manages many environmental programs to ensure environmental safety in the city.
The commission has developed refined environmental regulations, which include rigid industrial–related local and international standards.
It takes into account local and global environmental changes and state-of-the-art technologies by updating such regulations every five years.
The RCJY was established through royal decree to and has allocated an award for best environmental performance for factories, which is given annually during the celebration of the commission’s International Environment Day.