By Kaleigh Rogers, CBC News
Posted: Jan 14, 2013 7:11 AM ET
Last Updated: Jan 14, 2013 7:10 AM ET
The air monitor is located in Sam Manson Park. (Supplied.) It's something that affects every breath you take, yet many of us don't take pause to think about the quality of the air in our neighbourhood. That is except for community groups in East Hamilton, who will benefit from a pilot city air quality monitoring project. They've been pushing for an air quality monitor ever since their Ministry of Environment monitor was removed in the 1990s.
"Originally, the Ministy of Environment had four air quality monitors installed in different areas across the city but in the 90s, due to budget cuts, they pulled the one in East Hamilton because it provided very little variation. It didn't really tell us anything interesting," said Matt Lawson, manager of the Hamilton Public Health Services health hazards program, which launched the program January 1.
"A few years ago, community groups in that area became concerned because of various changes like the Red Hill Valley Parkway. They just want more information."
And more information they will receive. The portable air monitoring system called an "Airpointer" is currently operating in Sam Manson park. Roughly the size of a refrigerator, it evaluates air samples and measures the levels of common air pollutants —stuff like sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide — as well as a variety of environmental variables such as wind speed and rainfall.
Pilot project will run for one year
The data is compiled and updated automatically in real time several times daily online, using technology by Hamilton company Rotek Environmental. Right now, the data can be accessed through an external website, but Lawson said they are developing an easy-to-understand chart that will also be updated with the data on the city website.
"We're going to make it simple to compare in the table to the Ministry standard of acceptable levels of pollutants in the air so you can see if the current levels are at, above or below that," he said.
Air monitors are found across the city as a requirement for industrial facilities, but this is the first monitor owned by the city. The pilot project is only set to run for one year and it's yet to be decided what factors would influence a decision to continue the project, but Lawson is hopeful public health will be able to extend the project past the January 2014 end date.
"I would love to have it be an ongoing project because it would allow us to put the monitor anywhere we want in the city and collect data," he said. "It could help inform policy decisions we make. This has the potential to verify hot spots that people are raising issue with and see if there really is a problem."
Anyone interested in learning more about the pilot project is invited to attend an information session Wednesday, January 16 at 6:30 pm at Fortino's Supermarket Community Room, 75 Centennial Parkway North (next to Eastgate Mall).
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