City residents will soon get hourly reports on the health of their air now that the province has agreed to build a permanent air quality monitoring station in town.
St. Albert's Environmental Advisory Committee learned this week that the province had agreed to build a permanent air quality monitoring station in the city. The station, which would likely be ready by 2014, will for the first time give residents hourly reports and forecasts on the state of air pollution in St. Albert.
St. Albert does not currently have a permanent monitoring station, and has to rely on one in central Edmonton for health warnings.
St. Albert has wanted a monitoring station for years, said Leah Jackson, the city's environmental manager, but the province has never had the cash to build one. She learned that a station had finally been approved at the end of August. "I wasn't expecting this to happen for three to five years, so we really lucked out."
This was welcome news, according to David Spink, an air quality consultant in St. Albert. "It's a large enough urban centre that it should have some continuous air monitoring," he said. "The question or issue is where's the best place to put it."
Hole in network
The Clean Air Strategic Alliance, which is Alberta's main air quality management group, recommends that the province have an air monitoring station in every community with at least 20,000 people, according to Bob Myrick, manager of air policy for Alberta Environment.
"St. Albert has a population of over 60,000 based on the latest census, so it's definitely due for an air quality station."
The Edmonton region is probably short on monitoring stations, said Warren Kindzierski, an associate professor of environmental health at the University of Alberta who lives in St. Albert and studies air quality.
"We basically have no air quality monitors in the northern part of Edmonton's urban area," he said. "A monitor in St. Albert would provide more valuable information for that population area."
The big box
Alberta Environment got the $250,000 it needed to build a station this year and has started assembling the equipment for one, Myrick said. The gear should be together by March and in place by 2014 at the latest.
Once in place, Myrick said, the station will allow residents to get hourly reports on air pollution in town as expressed by the air quality health index, which ranks health risk from one (low) to 10 (high).
"At the very minimum, we're going to be looking for PM2.5 (particulate matter), ozone and nitrogen dioxide," he said — three known health threats used to calculate the index. They might add in other sensors for pollutants such as carbon monoxide if the city asks.
The station itself will look like one of those U-Haul-sized metal boxes you often see on construction sites, Myrick said.
The city wasn't sure where it would put the station, Jackson said, as it just got the guidelines for its placement this week.
"St. Albert Place is probably not a good location," she said, as the river valley could skew readings, but it could go on any number of other city properties. They also plan to decorate it once it's in place.
The best location will depend on what it is the city wants to monitor, Spink said. St. Albert Trail would be best if it was concerned about traffic pollution, while a schoolyard would be better to test background conditions. Putting it between Edmonton and St. Albert would let us track the influence that city has on our air.
St. Albert is growing, Kindzierski said, and so is the number of cars it has on the road. This new station should help the city track changes in our air over time, giving guidance to decision makers.
Jackson said she hoped to have the station in place in time for the next Clean Air Day (June 5).
Air quality forecasts can be found at www.airquality.alberta.ca.
