Air Quality Monitoring Is A Charade-Canada

Air quality monitoring is a charade

Red Deer Advocate

By Advocate news services

Published: April 07, 2010 8:49 AM

No sophisticated air quality studies are needed to realize that Red Deer has a serious air pollution problem.

The air stinks of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in acres of the city where residents are burning wood in their stoves and fireplaces.

The smoke and fumes are a threat to the health and lives of neighbours but dissipate before reaching an air quality monitor.

Even if emissions reach a monitoring unit, only a few simple chemicals are being monitored and the complex toxins and carcinogens produced by burning wood are not detected.

Surprisingly, only Toronto, which also relies on basic, Alberta-style monitoring, has checked to see if the Air Quality Index (AQI) is an effective indicator of the health impact of air pollution.

It is no surprise that 92 per cent of the pollution related illnesses and deaths are on days when, according to the air quality data, the air quality is “good” to “very good.”

Similarly about 12 years ago, the Suzuki Foundation identified the obvious: neglect of the Big Three sources of urban air pollution — domestic wood burning, automobiles and commercial trucks, was resulting in pollution-related deaths in Edmonton and Calgary (Red Deer was not included.)

Instead of seeing these findings as a need to start addressing urban air quality issues, the findings were rejected as there was no correlation between the AQI and the number of pollution-related deaths.

It is puzzling that so many people are prepared to believe that monitoring a few simple chemicals in a few locations will identify the health implications of urban air pollution.

Monitoring is even too basic to identify the source of pollutants and, in the absence of normal environmental data, several studies have shown that Albertans are most concerned about industrial pollution.

In reality, for urban residents, it is the pollution sources a few metres from your home that are the greatest threat to your family’s health — a busy road or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.

The level of toxins and chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects was increasing rapidly in wood-burning areas.

There is nothing surprising about these findings as the emissions from wood or coal burning stoves and fireplaces are a world-wide concern and have been since historical times.

Unfortunately, most cities in the U.S. and Canada use basic Alberta-style monitoring which provides no protection from the most dangerous source of urban pollution — wood burning stoves and fireplaces.

In the seventies, when families found their health affected by the smoke and chemicals from a neighbour’s fireplace, politicians would point out that the data from the monitoring unit, possibly a kilometer away, “proved,” that the city had clean air.

Then as the number of wood burning appliances increased and finally air quality standards were being exceeded, politicians invariably decided that so many residents (voters) were burning wood, that it was now too political to do anything.

Several hundred North American urban centres have already followed this path and there are more every year.

Once fouled by woodsmoke, no city as been able to correct this situation and it will take a future generation that cares for the urban environment for cities to, once again, be healthy places in which to live.

Hopefully, city politicians will institute burning bans along the lines of U.S. cities when calm conditions are forecast and smoke is not expected to disperse.

In addition, the city needs to ban further installation of wood burning appliances and borrowing an idea from the British, all levels of government should cover the cost of converting existing dirty-fuel appliances to burn natural gas.

Allan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environmental Study Group of the Environmental Council of Alberta


From: Red Deer Advocate website
By Advocate news services
Published: April 07, 2010