Spring Clean Up Stirs Up Air Quality Issues
Prince George, BC – The Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable is urging local businesses and individuals to think about the air quality, as they continue to clean up from the winter.
PGAIR Executive Director, Terry Robert, says, "Late removal of winter traction material without effective dust control strategies is still occuring.
"This has been particularly noticeable this year through dust advisories and the comments we are receiving from the community," says Robert. "We regularly hear from members of the community about the negative impacts of road dust on lung function."
There have been two dust advisories issued for the city in the past six weeks. PGAIR is asking organizations still involved in cleaning up sand and other aggregates from parking lots, driveways, and roads to consider the following:
- check the air quality on the day of the removal activities (email info@pgairquality.com to receive up-to-date information on air quality advisories)
- use dust suppressants during cleaning activities at this time of year (ie. pre-wet the traction materials before collection)
- use fine particle removal technology in addition to coarse-grain removal strategies
"While these actions are important for the remainder of the 2012 clean-up season, we especially encourage organizations to incorporate these steps into their yearly operationals plans," says Robert.
Northern Health’s Medical Health Officer, Dr. Willliam Osei says the health impacts from dust particulates are not as significant as those from the smaller woodsmoke, industrial and vehicle exhaust particulates, but he says there are still many individuals with pre-existing respiratory conditions that can be negatively impacted by high levels of dust.
PGAIR says continued diligence by the community at home and at work is required to improve air quality. Robert is encouraging city residents to help identify target areas and strategies through the PGAIR Online Inquiry and Comment form located at www.pgairquality.com
Comments
Why worry about the Residential areas of the City .The streets havent seen a sweeper since last spring. I guees the city is waiting for the gravel to wash down into the storm sewers . When they are full it can all be taken out with a vacume truck.
Guess what no dust. But they will need to buy more suction equipment to finish the job. And they will have all summer.
Cheers.
Sort of reminds me of the dust problem in sawmills. One has to continually remind people what they need to do because what should be obvious to everyone, really is not.
The street sweepers came through my area weeks ago. Shame that all the neighbours had their basketball hoops on the road that the kids use one day a year. Oh, and the one guy that prefers parking on the road instead of his double driveway.
Terry Robert should have a close look at what the street sweepers leave behind. They leave a film of mud on the streets. This, when it dries gets disturbed and then thrown up into the air by traffic. You can see pavement that is relatively clean before the sweepers pull everything from the curbs and spread it out over the pavement, leaving a muddy mess. Why is the city not using a flusher truck behind these sweepers to wash all of this down the storm drains? Then he’s worried about people sweeping their driveways. Get real and get out there to see where the dust is really coming from!
By the way, what happened to the super sweeper truck the city bought a couple of years ago? It was supposed to get nearly all of the fine stuff. Haven’t seen it out at all this year. It didn’t do what it was supposed to do either. It did a little better than the regular sweepers but not what it was touted as being able to do.
Once again the poor air quality in PG is blamed on everything but industry.
Things never change it appears. The creek that comes from Cranbrook hille ends up in a dam on th Ginter property and from there goes into the storm sewer.
During s recent heavy rain the storm sewer could not handle the runoff. It pooled on our street at a low spot. The neighbours phoned the City and this guy showed up in runing shes and watched the neighbour inplug the steet drain. His remarks of coursem were “I’m wearing runing shoes”
Cheers
Standard operating procedures …… SOP ..
I would love to see the SOP for street and sidewalk maintenance including pot hole repair, street and sidewalk repaving, snow clearing, spring street and sidewalk sweeping, regular summer street and sidewalk sweeping, storm drainge cleaning and thawing, etc.
Then I would like to compare those to both Standard Industry and Best Industry Practices as observable from other cities.
Then determine where our SOP sit compared to those two levels of proctice.
After all that, do some unannounced, independent monitoring of our SOP to see how we compare to our own SOP and the other levels of procedures mentioned.
The make a conclusion of how well this City does.
Standard operating procedures …… SOP ..
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Whts that SOP.mHave I got that mixed up with SOB?
I’m sure that the Core Reveiw will show usn how our City is managed More then a 1/4 million bnucks should give us some results. Maybe?
Cheers
Maybe PGAIR can go door to door handing out cans of “Endust” to the folks with questionable driveways.
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