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About Us

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The Gabriola Island Clean Air Society is a legally incorporated non-profit society registered in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Our email address is michaeldmehta@hotmail.com To see our live PurpleAir sensor network click here . Our purposes are: To promote protection of the air shed on Gabriola Island and Vancouver Island region from smoke and other airborne pollutants. To work with other organizations including local, provincial and federal governments to improve air quality by identifying current, emerging and future threats that may compromise public health and/or the environment. To work with organizations and governments to reduce risk from outdoor burning practices, wood smoke from wood burning appliances, and to help develop voluntary initiatives, bylaws, and enforcement recommendations. To perform educational and outreach functions to increase understanding of these threats to air sheds. To explore and develop ...
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The AQHI downplays exposures from particulate pollution

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How much is a human life worth? If you live in rural British Columbia or in resource-based communities like Kamloops you may be surprised to learn that your life is worth far less than someone from Vancouver or Victoria. Recent forest fires in the interior of BC, and the massive amounts of wood smoke produced, demonstrate how risk communication tools like the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) are designed to treat differentially exposures across populations. The AQHI is a scale used in Canada to weigh the relative contribution of three air pollutants; namely, particulate matter in the 2.5 micron range (PM2.5), ground level ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. It normally ranges between 1-10 or from “low” to “very high” health risk but can reach numbers like 49 as was recorded on August 3, 2017, in Kamloops. The formula used for calculating the AQHI is straightforward and it involves using a three-hour average for these pollutants in micrograms/m 3 for PM2.5, and parts-per-billion (...
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How clean are the emissions from a SUV?

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In August 2015 we decided to test the PM 2.5 levels from a 2013 Ford Explorer with a V8 engine. The nephelometer (Radiance Research M90 )  was positioned 15cm away from the exhaust pipe on a calm day. After several minutes of readings on a warmed up engine, the PM 2.5 levels ranged between 8 and 11 with a modal response of approximately 8.5. Here's a photo of the experiment. This shows us how clean vehicles emissions are when compared to woodsmoke fires.   Paradoxically you would be safer (at least from a PM 2.5 perspective) breathing off this tailpipe like a snorkel than  living near a wood fire like this where readings have sometimes hit 200 (ten times the provincial limit).
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