Blah, blah, blah....I don't want to hear nothing about air quality until some genius moves those three pulp mills out of the bowl to somewhere that the wind blows. They stand downtown pretending that anything else is happening, while ignoring the fact that the location of our industries is the main cause of poor air quality.

Blame it on the taco shop, it's their fault we have poor air quality. If people didn't eat tacos and beans, we would have fresher air.

"greenhouse gases" are water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and ozone.

While greenhouse gases are detrimental to the health of the earth, not all greenhouse gases are directly detrimental to humans and some are more so than others.

Ozone is one of the key ones and is one of several key pollutants from the human health point of view.

The internal combustion engine, especially the diesel engine, is one of the prime contributors to the formation of ozone. This is not news. This has been known for several decades and is the reason why California lead the way with emission standards for motor vehicles. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about pollutants, their sources, and their impact on air quality.

Ozone is the single major pollution problem in the typical large urban centres in North America, including Canada.

Here is a page from Ontario dealing with that topic and the targets they have set.

http://www.greenontario.org/strategy/smog.html

Prince George is not a typical large urban centre in North America. Ozone is not a common problem in PG. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an air quality advisory in PG due to ozone.

Particulates are the main single problem. While transportation, especially diesel engines, such as trucks and locomotives, contribute to particulates, the key contributors are the industries which emit pollutants in roughly the amounts shown in the National Pollution Inventory and are located in the lowest part of the valley.

Why do I say that? For several reasons. The simplest to understand is that the incidence of high pollution as monitored at Plaza 400 is typically associated with an inversion and winds from the northeast. There is very little traffic in the northeast of centre town. The traffic in relation to Plaza 400 is primarily to the north, west and south.

Taking Canadian averages for emissions, and applying them to the specific site of Prince George simply does not work. Then, relating the emissions to air quality at a specific location in the city makes it even worse.

Should there ever come a time when a significant amount of industry is moved from the valley, or goes the next step in reducing its emissions through application of best available technology, then we will likely see that our major pollution concerns will be transportation, similar to larger urban areas.

Until then, I support what the TRM posted.

Time will tell ...... its been 10 years .... maybe the next 10 will bring a bit more understanding and fortitude by those who are in a position to do something about it.

BTW, today is one of those bad air days, not yet at the level which would call for an advisory, but if the weather continues like this, perhaps tomorrow.

The AQI numbers at 3pm for Plaza 400 is:
Carbon Monoxide = 0
Nitrogen Dioxide = 5
Sulphur Dioxide = 5
Ozone = 7
PM10 = 44

I have not got a clue what the PM2.5 is since it is measured, but not reported. It is likely in the mid 20's.

Yes your right thereasonableman, all I could smell at 5 a.m this morning was all pulp mill!. Why do they keep ignoring this fact!We had visitors and family here this summer/fall and that is the first they remark upon, not cars or road dust but the rotten egg smell.Breathing all this sulphur can't be good for anyone!.

All I could smell this morning upon opening the door to retrieve the newspaper was the heavy acrid smoke from my neighbour's wood burning heating contraption - on all day and night now with the winter season having begun.

Oh, by the way: I have sinus/breathing problems which are tremendously aggravated by the wood smoke.

I could probably live a lot better with the pulpmill smell than what I must endure now!

Lets not forget the smell of chemicals mixed with the pulp mill! Sunday was particularily disgusting - do they save it all for the weekend hoping no one will notice? My mom refers to it as "the smell of money" - I call it lack of planning and until we either move the industry or move the city centre it will never get better. I vote for relocating down town to the Hart - can't smell it up there!

The refinery is a major polluter. Most of the rotten egg smell comes from there. Sour gas.

I live in the Hart. Read my previous post regarding wood smoke problems, please!

When people have hydro and natural gas they should not be allowed to burn wood and make life miserable for their neighbours - we are all breathing the same air, for heaven's sake!

Response from the City: "Can't do a thing about it when there is no air advisory in effect!"

Problem solved.

Ya, well, most of us are healthy and like the smell of a wood fire.

I had the same problem with my last neighbour, diplomat. Someone new moved in and the problem is solved.

They say that the City has a clean air bylaw. But it only prevents people from using their wood fired appliances when there is an advisory in effect, as you say. That is useless.

Good debate. I'd like to point out that people who have a wood stove in their home pay a hefty premium on their insurance. In order to recoup these premiums it's in their best interest to utilize their woodstove. Not only that, but in the event of an emergency (or a natural disaster like the recent heavy snowfall west of town) people with wood heat will look pretty well prepared. In order to alleviate this issue the city should present people who use their wood stoves regularly a grant to upgrade their stoves to more modern, air tight units, or better yet pellet stoves.

I'll bet if you lined up 500 tractors in downtown all belching away in one location you could start to evivicate it with a mill.

This is where a ring road would make sense. I heard MLA John Rustad brought a ring road possibility up talking about a 'resource bridge' in College Heights. My concern is that any bridge south of town is 100% a federal responsibility as part of the transcanada highway bypassing our downtown and should have nothing to do with a provincial politician other than advocacy. The federal government owes us the dividend.

Federally I would like to hear Jay Hill and Dick Harris talking about a ring road connector south of town for our East-West trans-Canada infrastructure needs.

Provincially I would like to hear our three local MLA's talking about completeing the ring road North from the Airport to Salmon Valley.

Ideally they would be reading from the same plan book.

The air in PG is thicker than my wife's beef stew.

Lets clean the air in this crap town up, before we all drop dead from lung rot.