monitor air quality.

The Bermuda Electric Light Company has secured planning permission for three air quality monitoring stations around the plant on Serpentine Road and it is hoped a fourth will also be built.

In addition, a new meteorological tower will also be built to check on windspeed and direction.

The stations will check on levels of carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particles -- tiny solid materials floating in the air.

Mr. Wayne Carey, Belco's environmental officer, said the power plant burnt diesel as well as gas and he said he expected to find some air pollution, however at tiny levels.

"We would not find the chemicals in any sort of concentration. We burn clean fuel with a sulphur content of only half a per cent which is much less than any requirement,'' he said.

The stations have to be built under the terms of the Clean Air Act and the tower is to be erected so that if any concentrations of chemicals are found they can be compared to a particular wind speed and direction.

Applications for the stations and the tower have been approved by the Development Application Board although it said the stations and the tower can only be there until September 1998 when the land will have to be restored to its former condition.