Air Quality Report Topic of Next Monday's Meeting

By 250 News

No haze to block the view of tonight’s moon

Prince George, B.C. -  The Mayor’s Task Force on Air Quality Improvement has delivered its final report to City Council.

Mayor Colin Kinsley announced plans to create the task force during the last election, when air quality became a ’hot’ topic during the campaign.  It was created in January of 2006 and began activities this time last year.

As reported by Opinion250 on Friday, the full report is now available on the City’s website and a Committee of the Whole meeting is scheduled for next Monday evening to discuss the report and its recommendations in detail.

Chair, Dr. Peter Jackson, gave councillors an overview this evening, "One of our first recommendations was to suggest the City, and the Ministry of Environment, and the Regional District, and Environment Canada sit down and develop an action plan and seek agreement on the implementation and the timelines for implementation for (the remainder of the recommendations in the report)."

Those recommendations include:

1. To the City:

• review the effectiveness of its Clean Air Bylaw
• hire an additional Bylaw Enforcement Officer
• provide matching incentives to replace woodburning appliances
• work with the Regional District and Ministry of Environment to determine effects of potential emissions from new areas considered in the heavy industry land-use study
• encourage business not regulated by MoE to understand their emissions and best practises

2.  To the Prince George Air Quality Implementation Committee

• replace current committee structure with a single roundtable with three working groups (monitoring, research, and education)
• hire a coordinator to facilitate Air Quality management and coordinate education and outreach

3.  To the BC Ministry of Environment

• set targets and timelines to reduce industrial emissions impacting air quality by 40-percent by 2016
• review air pollution permits to lower allowed emissions
• work with City and Regional District to ensure new sources impacting air quality are not allowed until existing sources are lowered to allow for continuous improvement

Prince George Mayor Colin Kinsley says the report is "a great piece of work".

"I can see areas where we can start to act on this - maybe not everything because there’s other partners involved, but it’s a great place to start."

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