Bad Air Hangs Over City

Thursday, February 01, 2007 12:49 PM

Mother Nature is offering no relief today from a high level of fine particulates trapped in the airshed above Prince George.

The Ministry of Environment issued the advisory yesterday afternoon and says a check of monitoring station this morning shows the need to continue it.

The level of PM10’s was particularly high at the BCR site, with a reading of 71 as of noon, 24-hour levels were lower at the Downtown station, 46, and College Heights has a reading of 37.

The 24-hour level for PM 2.5, which are the finer particulates associated with combustion sources, was 18 at the Downtown site.

The ministry says, "Based on air quality data, the high levels appear to be predominantly due road dust with some contribution from combustion sources. Light winds, dry conditions and clear skies over the area resulted in pollutants being trapped in the airshed."

The advisory is expected to be updated at 4pm. For Opinion250's earlier story outlining the difficulting in linking poor air quality to hospital admissions, click here.

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Posted on Thursday, February 01, 2007 12:49 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Harbinger on February 1 2007 4:28 PM

Ho (cough, cough, hack) hum. It will be real news when I read that good air hangs over the city. Get on it.

Posted by: camoose on February 1 2007 4:38 PM

I see a real opportunity here. A sure fire way to detect where this pollution is coming from. Using all the past spins that we've been fed, if we stop burning wood, stop driving(this will kill two of the so-called causes:idling vehicles & road dust.) If we knew what the Ministry meant by combustion sources , we could stop that too. After the above cures are applied, if the foul air continues, we could only assume what many suspect, that it is industry doing the poluting. You could also do the reverse and shut down the mills and refinery for a day and see if that cures the problem or if it really is those bad combustion engines and sand the city puts on it's streets. As a wise man once said -- just a thought.

Posted by: owl on February 1 2007 5:50 PM

Actually one can look at the hourly data available and see that there is typically a build up overnight.

There are several activities that continue overnight and others that do not or are considerably reduced.

People with wood burning fireplaces typcially do not burn them overninght. That is typically an evening situation. Those with wood burning heat sources do, however they are a small fraction of the people in town. In the case of wood pellets, they are contributing the least of asll wood burning. The latter two are exempt from the bylaw anyway.

The amount of general traffic in the city dies down considerably after 6 or so..

Industrial traffic is also reduced considerably, especially in high potential dust generation areas such as the BCR.

The only thing that continues virtually unchanged on a 24/7/365 basis, other than mill maintenance shut down days, are the mills.

So, apply that to your in-tuit-ion and see what you get.

Posted by: trueblue2 on February 3 2007 12:03 PM

Please do not forget to include in this ugly mix, the refinery....as well, what the heck was it that escaped into the Rustad yard?????? What company/industry in the BCR did that come from?