By Sarah Rae

Real-time air quality reports offered online

Jun 7, 2016 | 7:00 PM

Several communities in the northwest region now have access to real-time air quality reports.

The initiative was announced by Western Yellowhead Air Management Zone (WYAMZ) Tuesday, June 7.

WYAMZ executive director Terry Gibson said residents could use the reports if they’re going camping, or they just want to know if it’s okay for their children to safely play outside, though the air is usually pretty good in this area. 

“We’re blessed with good air in Saskatchewan and our instruments and our association are doing what we can to help protect the air here,” he said.

He said they’re proud of how user friendly the website is. Users can choose the area they want to look at on the website and it gives them a rating of good, fair, poor or very poor and then breaks down the specific chemicals, in addition to temperature and wind, in a chart.

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The instruments they use to measure air quality are located in Meadow Lake, Unity, Maidstone, Kindersley, and Lloydminster West and East.

Gibson said the measurements aren’t exhaustive and are dependent on the area, so somewhere with more oil and gas production, for example, they would focus on more chemicals specific to that.

This comes in light of Clean Air Day on Wednesday, June 8, a federal initiative as part of Canadian Environment Week, which is meant to get Canadians thinking about the environment.

Gibson said they don’t currently have any immediate plans to add more locations for measurements, but said they’re always evaluating. He said they started collecting data in the fall of 2013, so the science committee will have three years of data to consider by fall of 2016.

“We’re always looking, as time and funding allows, at what should we be doing, where should we be measuring, what should we be measuring, so our science committee looks at all those things,” he said.

Sarah.rae@jpbg.ca

@sarahjeanrae