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Air Quality 'Peaked Out' At Record High

By 250 News

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 04:04 PM

Prince George, B.C. -  The wildfire smoke that has once again been enveloping Prince George has broken a record in terms of air quality.

Environment Ministry Air Quality Meteorologist, Dennis Fudge, says the 24-hour values for fine particulate peaked out at 102 micrograms per cubic metre at the downtown monitoring station -- 65-percent higher than the previous record of 66 set in 2004.

Fudge says the hourly levels of fine particulates have also been staggering, staying four-times higher than the level that requires an advisory for hours on end today. (click here for the provincial air quality website)

He says the ministry issues an air quality advisory when fine particulate levels creep above 25 ug/m3 and the downtown station is recording 166 ug/m3 right now.  Fudge says the level hit 238 four hours ago and has been over 160 on five hourly readings throughout the day.  (The smoke that rolled into the city back on August 5th hit a peak reading of 283 ug/m3)

Fudge says Williams Lake and Quesnel have been harder hit this afternoon, with several readings in the 300 ug/m3 range.

He says this afternoon's weather system should clear up the city's airshed, but, right now, we're at Mother Nature's whim.  The meteorologist says if no new fires start, the winds should shift the smoke plume south to give us a break.  But he points out it could be an altogether different story if lightning strikes spark some new fires.

 


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Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 04:04 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Comment Posted by: DPJ on August 18 2010 5:15 PM
Choke Choke Choke, cough cough cough....
Comment Posted by: Resident on August 18 2010 5:51 PM
So how many companies voluntarily cut back on production of emissions to help alleviate the situation? The city has been extremely silent on this issue once again.
Comment Posted by: boomer on August 18 2010 6:59 PM
Reminds me of winters in the mid 70's when bee hive burners were going full tilt and woodstoves were really popular.
Comment Posted by: govsux on August 18 2010 8:02 PM
Could these numbers be "Fudged"
Sorry
Comment Posted by: The Real Moses on August 18 2010 8:20 PM
sure looking forward to better air quality days, when we can get back to blaming big industry, instead of mother nature :-) Praying for rain...lots of it.
Comment Posted by: camoose on August 18 2010 9:28 PM
I did my best for the bad air quality today. I didn't use my wood stove or drive on any gravel roads. What do industry do?
Comment Posted by: gus on August 18 2010 10:10 PM
"Reminds me of winters in the mid 70's when bee hive burners were going full tilt and woodstoves were really popular."

What BS. I came in 1973. This is nowhere near that level of particulates. You are obviously one of those who walked uphill to school every day in -50 weather and uphill back home.

Beehives were going, yes. Wood Stoves were not common at all other than in the outlying areas maybe. Wood burning fireplaces were very common, yes. But they were not for heating houses.

The worst air quality there was in those days was in the spring when the city cleaned streets at night in clouds of dust like pigpen in the cartoons. I think the numbers in the headlines in those days were close to 300um/m3 for PM10. Those were the days when they were just being recorded and PM2.5 was not used for the records.
Comment Posted by: cougars fan on August 18 2010 10:32 PM
The beehive burner at Plateau was still going strong yesterday. So Resident, I dont think the big companies are doing too much to limit the effects.

It will be interesting to see how thing go in the next couple days. Hopefully the change in weather does not create as much havoc as they fear it might. Things are bad enough already...
Comment Posted by: boomer on August 19 2010 8:13 AM
The only BS on here is you Gus.Do you live in a bubble. By everyone it's been fun LOL
Comment Posted by: interceptor on August 19 2010 9:32 AM
Can one of you math scholars please tell me, as a percentage, how much better the PG air quality would be without the Plateau burner going - in comparison to the effects of a 21,000 hectare forest fire? Im betting youre going to need alot of zeros... :-)
Comment Posted by: Retired on August 19 2010 10:47 AM
I cant agree with you on the air quality issue Gus. I have been watching air quality in PG for many years. It wasn’t just the street sweeping operations that put the air quality over the top.

Early this year the MOE changed there website for air quality so I lost track of PG air quality for while. But up until last year when ever we had a few days of sunny dry weather the air quality for 10 pm at Plaza 400 and BCR industrial site would go to “Poor”. And 2.5 pm was not herd of..

In the last year the entire system of air quality monitoring has changed. I suspect that the continuous poor air quality at Plaza 400 and the BCR industrial site put a lot of pressure and industry to clan up their act. What has now happened MOE are shifting the poor air quality to a residential factor by the use of the type of vehicle used and of course our Cities constant harping about wood burning.

With the record of the current government that we have to treat us like mushroom , keep us in the dark and feed us sh***t.
Cheers