Clear Full Forecast

Air Advisory Still With Us

By Michelle Cyr-Whiting

Thursday, February 01, 2007 05:13 PM

The haze is visible from the south end of Ospika Boulevard as the sun sets

All three monitoring stations in Prince George recorded a jump in levels of fine particulate matter this afternoon, meaning the second Air Quality Advisory of 2007 will enter its second day.

The Ministry of Environment says, "24-hour levels were 52 at Downtown, 41 at College Heights and 76 at the BCR site at 4:00 this afternoon. 24-hour level for PM2.5, which are the finer particles associated with combustion sources, was 19 at the Downtown site."

At noon today, the level of PM10’s at the BCR site was 71, while Downtown was registering 46 and the reading in College Heights was 37.  The 24-hour PM2.5 level downtown was 18.

The Air Quality objective for PM10 is 50 μg/m3 for a 24-hour average.

Ministry of Environment Meteorologist, Dennis Fudge, says the high levels appear to be predominately from road dust, with some contribution from combustion sources.  Fudge says this is the time of year when the city can get strong air inversions, if there’s no wind or precipitation.

He says without any snow or rain, the roads are bare and kicking up a lot of dust that gets trapped in the airshed above us.


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Posted on Thursday, February 01, 2007 05:13 PM in Health by Michelle Cyr-Whiting

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Comments

Comment Posted by: Foo738 on February 1 2007 6:05 PM
et tu Brutus surely not the pulp mill
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 1 2007 6:06 PM
"He says without any snow or rain, the roads are bare and kicking up a lot of dust that gets trapped in the airshed above us."

Perfect opportunity for the city crews to start up the high powered super efficient vacuum sweepers, go out on the roads round the clock and sweep up the dust!!!

The city doesn't have any? How come? They should have a fleet of them because the same thing has been happening year after year!

How many of those super vacuum sweepers would the $ 1 million dollar for the new clock display at the CN Centre have bought???

A clock is more important than the lungs of the citizens!

Bizarre, indeed. Yikes.



Comment Posted by: owl on February 1 2007 11:26 PM
With a clock like that you can time your wheezing spells to the nearest 100th of a second .... ifyou have a camera hooked up, you can watch a replay of your facial contortions ....

So 46μg/m3 of PM10 and 18 of PM2.5 ... that's 28μg/m3 greater than 2.5 and less than 10μg/m3

We must remember that the PM2.5 is primarily from combusiton sources and a portion of the above PM2.5 is also from those sources. So, I would not be surprised if the source is abotu 50/50 ...

The 18μg/m3 is the worst fraction since it goes deeper into the lungs and is more toxic due to it being primarily carbon based rather than silica based.

Thus, if we get rid of the combustion source part, we get rid of the most dangerous component of the PM based pollution.

So, no one ever speaks in those terms ... why not? The ministry reporting is simply spin as far as I am concerned, has been for years and will never change from the sounds of it .... it is a broken record ...

We need some new people as spokespeople ... The media is getting reports from the wrong people .. Fudge is a meteorologist, not a public health doctor.

I want to see the public health officials becoming more responsible. They have people who can respond with some knowledge to various view such as mine expressed above, but they don't on their own and are not asked to.
Comment Posted by: owl on February 1 2007 11:28 PM
The fourth paragraph down should read "The PM2.5 is the worst fraction .... "
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 2 2007 7:53 AM
Smoke and mirrors, that's all we get- with heavy emphasis on the smoke!

How about some action: Tighten up on the emission standards for the mills, make them install additional electrostatic filters and wet scrubbing to remove all fine particulates from stack emissions.

Require vehicles with diesel engines to install particulate filters on the exhaust - Europe has developed them and they are being phased in over there.

Convert the fleet of diesel buses to (overhead power) electric buses or battery powered.

Ban wood burning appliances in the city limits, wherever electricity and natural gas are already available for home heating.

Etc. Etc.

Why follow the old established methods of having more *scientific* studies and blaming everything on the weather?


Comment Posted by: fedup on February 2 2007 2:14 PM
I feel bad for the folks who live and/or work down town this stuff is killing them.I came into town about 10 this morning and could hardly stand the smell.Maybe they should wash the sand they put down so it is only sand and not sand/dirt.Could this be done?
Comment Posted by: fedup on February 2 2007 2:20 PM
Oh ya and as for the vehical exhaust get rid of some of the trafic lights through town on hyways 16+97 so we don't have cars siting at intersections just burning fuel.You know we spend as much time idling as we do driving in this town.
Comment Posted by: diplomat on February 2 2007 2:51 PM
The Highways 16+97 intersection should have been done properly, as suggested by many people: A proper overpass/underpass cloverleaf type which allows traffic to flow instead of IMPEDING it!

Kamloops has many proper cloverleaf intersections, wherever they were needed!

5th and Central was another opportunity missed: the lay of the land is ideal for this and yet, it was allowed to become another obstacle to traffic where tens of thousands of idling vehicles are contributing enormous amounts of air pollution 24/7.

The City (City Manager, Mayor, Council) have to wake up and start doing the right things for this city by demanding from the provincial government that it be brought up to a better standard, with for instance Kamloops being a shining example!

Comment Posted by: rvandiver on February 3 2007 10:00 AM
Heart disease, cancer, birth defects, suicide, leukemia all proven consequences of breathing 20,000 to 100,000 particles per cubic centimeter of air....20-120 nanometers in size (auto and diesel exhaust). More here: [url]http://www.BlueSkiesNow.blogspot.com[url]
Hybrid technologies (97% less particulates emitted) are a must!