By Chad Klassen

Local committee launches new air quality website

Jun 8, 2016 | 3:01 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s Clean Air Day across Canada, and a local committee of politicians, environmental groups, and industry has launched a new website, hoping to educate Kamloops residents about the city’s air quality.

Mike Simpson from the Fraser Basin Council says the website is a starting point for people to learn about emissions and their impact on the environment. It’s the work of an air quality roundtable formed on this day last year, including the City of Kamloops, Interior Health, First Nations, and groups like Kamloops Moms for Clean Air. 

“The idea was, can we have a venue and a forum where the technical people come together, talk about air quality issues in a non-positional forum? Basically we came up with objectives of education and awareness, supporting the implementation of the Kamloops Airshed Management Plan that came out about four years ago,” notes Simpson.

He says the air quality in Kamloops is good overall, despite a few smoggy days throughout the year. But Simpson notes on days of poor air quality, it’s not all due to industry.

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“The key thing that we’ve identified is that industry for sure contributes a significant amount of the emissions,” says Simpson. “There’s also 90,000 people that live in this city that drive vehicles and have home heating. Part of the educational awareness is we all contribute a little, and so we all potentially have a role to play to make sure we keep the air quality clean.”