Air Quality Discussion Underway

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C. -  Just 13 city residents bundled up and braved this evening’s bitter temperature to make their way to City Hall for a public meeting on air quality.

After receiving the final report from the Mayor’s Task Force on Air Quality Improvement at last week’s regular council meeting, a less-formal Committee of the Whole meeting was scheduled for this evening to allow councillors to ask questions of the report’s author, Dr. Peter Jackson, and fully discuss the report.

Dr. Jackson has begun the evening with an "Air Quality 101" presentation going over the main issues surrounding air quality and the factors that impact air quality.  He says the main challenge for local politicians is to weigh all the information received from various sources -- the science side, the health side, the industry, the geography of the city, itself, etc. -- and make decisions in light of that information.  (The entire presentation can be downloaded from the City’s website, click on the January 28th agenda)

Jackson has gone over the ’chain of the air quality problem’:  1. sources of emissions  2. the local atmosphere  3.  the receptors (people who live here).  He says in evaluating sources of emissions, it’s not just the raw tonnage that’s important, it’s also the elevation of the emissions source and its distance from where people live.

Councillor Brian Skakun has asked whether it’s possible to quantify the health impacts.  Dr. Jackson says the city is too small for a study to produce conclusive results, but results can be extrapolated from studies done in larger population centres.  (click here, for earlier story)  Skakun says he understands, but "it’s too bad we couldn’t because I think part of this puzzle is finding out exactly what the costs are to us."

Councillors will consider the 40 recommendations in the task force’s report, later this evening.

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