Gabriola Island Clean Air Society

In case you harbour the belief that pellet stoves are clean and green. This pattern of high air pollution in Kamloops at a location on the north shore is driven by a neighbour with a newer pellet stove.

GICAS director Dr. Michael Mehta's research is mentioned in the Globe and Mail in an article on air pollution and brain development. “While research and regulations tend to focus on vehicular emissions, Dr. Mehta noted that the largest source of air pollution in many rural Canadian communities is biomass burning. In Gabriola Island, B.C., where he lives part of the year and where many heat their homes with wood stoves and fireplaces, Dr. Mehta said he was surprised to find air-pollution measurements that were significantly worse than in the country’s urban centres.”

Thank in large part to people who burn yard waste, and still operate their wood stoves in late April, Gabriola Island currently has the worst air quality in North America. The 232 micrograms/m3 reading on the map is our island. This level of PM2.5 is almost ten times the provincial maximum based on a 24 hours average.

Dr. Michael Mehta of TRU wearing a Vogmask . Yes, I've heard the jokes about Darth Vader and Silence of the Lambs. Over the past two years people in many parts of British Columbia have been exposed to unusually high levels of particulate pollution from wildfires. The messaging from the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), and public health officials from Interior Health and other publicly funded health care providers, has been mixed and noticeably negative about the benefits of wearing N95 respirator masks as a risk reduction measure. In a recent article by Ashley Legassic of CFJC Today, she quoted Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Kamran Golmohammadi as follows:  "They require fitting," he says. "In other words, it  has to be tight on the face. So people with facial  hair, small children and people who cannot fit  (the mask) properly... will not benefit from these  masks and there are alternative ways and more  effective ways of pro

With air quality changing rapidly, and awareness of the risks from air pollution increasing daily, here's a handy reminder of how good the Purple Air network truly is. In Kamloops, British Columbia, the provincial government has only one air monitoring station for the entire region. It is located downtown on West Victoria Street, and incidentally away from some of the largest industrial polluters. A Purple Air sensor happens to be co-located near this provincial air monitoring station, and it is within 200m of it and at a similar elevation from the ground. Here's what the provincial readings look like recently for PM2.5 levels. And here is a graph from the co-located Purple Air sensor. If you focus on the graphs between April 4-10 (the Purple Air graphing package only shows one week at a time), you'll see that the pattern is virtually identical and readings are extremely close.

As many of you likely know, there have been several small wildfires recently in B.C.. With a strong El Nino oscillation this year, we predict that this Summer may be worse than what we’ve experienced to-date in terms of air pollution. It’s sometimes difficult to make sense of the numbers and metrics used to explain air pollution. We came across the following website that helps show visually the differences between these levels, and are attaching some screenshots from this  website .  With respect to PM2.5 sized particles, the World Health Organization is recommending an annual average of 10 micrograms/cubic metre or lower. Below is a representation of this level. The Provin ce of British Columbia has a target (not even a regulation) of 25 micrograms/cubic metre for a 24 hour period.  At points during the Summers of 2017 and 2018, we had daily averages exceeding 500 micrograms/cubic metre in the interior and north of the province. What’s clear from the s

Here's a new article from one of our Board members, Dr. Michael Mehta. He states: Wood smoke, and the cultural and social practices that allow it to be generated without much regulation and control, operates in a vacuum where preconceptions, origin stories and strong emotions impair action. We need another narrative. Lack of government action to deal with this problem encourages people to ignore this evidence and to underestimate the risk. Burning wood deprives people of the right to breathe clean air in their own homes, and it ultimately represents an uncontrolled form of secondhand smoke exposure with broad implications.