I have the answer to PG's poor air quality. It's all caused by smoke from the north east sector, people heating their houses with wood and of course road dust. Sound familiar?

The residints 'fear' the emissions are having serious health impacts? Are you all waiting a few years to make sure? I will tell you, the health impacts are huge and accumulative. These plants should be nowhere near housing developments! The facts have been around for years and one wonders why places like Prince George continue to place them near homes/people. Its like you were/are in a time-warp, certainly not a modern North American city.
Your solution is clear and simple. You keep the politics out of it and you do as you should: You either move the residents or the plant! They cannot co-exist.
Solution: You move the plant out of the Valley( Valleys are wonderful for people to reside and enjoy but not great for industry, particularly air emmissions) and up into an area with better air flow but (it should go without saying....) with the strict emission guidelines because our days of industry/people freely sending excess pollutants into the air are over! Costly solution? Yes..Costly because your plant(for whatever reason..) was allowed to be placed in a location that has proven harmful & wrong. Lets call it a 'costly mistake' and get on with moving it out so the residents can get on with their lives and enjoy what looks like beautiful surroundings and the industry can get on with their job! Don't let it happen again to your community. There is room for both industry and people so don't mix them...not with these serious health implications, to mention only one of the compelling reasons to move this plant.
Good luck . We had hopes that Prince George B.C. would set an example for industry,people and communities. Work together, find a solution even after a mistake such as this has been made. We are still hoping/watching.
-newswatch4-

Great comment. Now how about all the other suffering residents in the bowl?

Newswatch4, that's all comonsense. Very good observations IMO. I just can't see it flying with this mayor and council.

I agree wholeheartedly with newswatch4. It’s time to put an end to the rhetoric, declare further debate futile, and move on to developing an action plan to make the transition as quickly and efficiently as possible! If the political will exists to take proactive measures to deal with the relocation of the Pittman and Columbia Bitulithic asphalt plants then the solution becomes relatively straightforward: make full use of environmental grant initiatives at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels to defray the cost of moving the plants to an area where the noise and toxicity will not affect the health of residents. Environmental planning is ramping up at an incredible pace; it makes perfect sense to demonstrate that Prince George will take proactive steps to deal with this issue rather than wait to have the action mandated by Ottawa or Victoria – a mandate that is inevitable at some point in the near future. The financial cost of relocating the asphalt plants now is nothing compared to the environmental and human health costs that are being incurred by the residents of Prince George generally and the North Nechako in particular. It is incumbent on our elected officials and corporate citizens such as Pitman and Columbia Bitulithic to step up and do the right thing by realizing that the human and environmental impacts of these operations have their own ‘bottom line’, one of incalculable and irreparable damage.