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Industrial Sector . Overview of Air Quality: Monitoring + Some Results

Industrial Sector . Overview of Air Quality: Monitoring + Some Results. Ben Weinstein, BSc . Air Quality Meteorologist Ministry of Environment March 2012. Why are we here?. In BVLD Airshed people are affected by emissions of particulate matter, PM

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Industrial Sector . Overview of Air Quality: Monitoring + Some Results

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  1. Industrial Sector.Overview of Air Quality: Monitoring + Some Results Ben Weinstein, BSc. Air Quality Meteorologist Ministry of Environment March 2012

  2. Why are we here? • In BVLD Airshed people are affected by emissions of particulate matter, PM • This occurs mostly in the form of wood combustion / drying • General consensus among the health community that there is no threshold at which there are no impacts. (e.g. there are no safe levels of particulate matter)

  3. Acute and Chronic Effects • Impacts from short-term exposure: • mostly in people with pre-existing health conditions • acute health effects: • breathing problems, increase the severity and occurrences of asthma attacks, heart attacks and eye, nose and throat irritation. • Impacts from long-term exposure: • puts the entire population at greater risk of developing chronic health conditions • Bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, cancer, death • Also linked to pre-term births, low birth weight • More burden is attributed to long-term exposures (as much as 85% of mortalities)

  4. Burden • Not as important as factors such as smoking or diabetes but still significant. Mortality burden of PM2.5 for Northern and Interior BC has been estimated to be between 0.2% and 0.93% (16 – 74 deaths/year)*.

  5. Intake Fraction • Zoning is a large factor which influences intake fraction

  6. Pinnacle Pellet near Burns Lake Intake fraction high for nearby residents but lower for Burns Lake December 7 2011

  7. Significance of Source • Industrial sources operate in valley bottoms 24 / 7. • For part of the year dispersion is adequate to minimize impacts from industrial sources • At other times industrial sources contribute to cumulative loadings along with other sources

  8. PM2.5 Advisory Days in BVLD

  9. How Are We Doing? • Have chosen some selected indicators and some from this specific source • Overall annual averages (min 7 years for trend analysis) • Where large industrial sources were removed improvements to AQ were measured

  10. Houston AQ Trend Indicators Due to decrease in loadings there may have been a step change in AQ trends as opposed to a linear downward trend

  11. Houston Annual Average PM and 98th Percentile Days PM2.5 daily 24-hr 98th percentile objective PM2.5 Annual Objective 5th highest in B.C. 6th highest in B.C. 7th highest in B.C.

  12. Quantified by Authorizations Measured by MOE Studied by health professionals In BVLD MOE authorizes industrial emissions and measure ambient concentrations (from all sources) Hard to differentiate sources at monitoring stations, though data corroborates with visual clues

  13. Houston Industrial Sources Venting Index: Poor all day Feb 13 2012 10:00 AM

  14. Houston PM2.5 Feb 12 – 14 2012

  15. Monitoring Issue Monitoring technology is changing in B.C. from existing instruments to more complete measurements of PM2.5 Current instruments are known to undermeasure PM2.5, especially in the cold winter months. At times, actual concentration may be 100% higher than measured

  16. PM2.5 Summary Statistics

  17. Summary • No safe threshold for effects of PM • Industrial sector is important source because of continued operation • Population exposure to smoke from industrial sector can be significant, especially where zoning has industrial sources upwind of communities • Where loading has been removed, improved AQ has been observed. This points to a desire for continuous improvement in emissions • When new PM instruments come online higher concentrations expected. This will lead to more frequent AQ management

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