improving regional air quality high on metro vancouver's 2023 agenda
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frequent air-quality warnings in recent years, particularly due to wildfire smoke, have driven home the need for metro vancouver to take stronger action on pollution.
the regional district has made that a priority for 2023 and told its climate action committee to develop new and strengthened air-quality bylaws and regulations.
“i think every municipality needs to take this on in terms of recognizing there’s no going backwards,” said adriane carr, a long-time vancouver councillor and outgoing chair of metro vancouver’s climate committee.
“we’re not going to see fewer climate impacts, only increasingly more severe climate impacts. so yeah, let’s toughen up the regulations and also our efforts to be resilient.”
incoming committee chairperson, vancouver coun. lisa dominato, was not available for an interview.
carr said the regional district occupies an influential place in the region, through its delegated responsibility to issue air-emissions permits, to affect change around the air quality that can be controlled, and to mitigate those wildfire impacts that it cannot.
so the climate action committee’s draft work plan for this year will include a proposed amendment to tighten requirements for building heating systems to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, and new bylaws setting standards for mowers and landscaping equipment, and for emissions of volatile organic compounds from cannabis production, which can increase ground-level ozone.
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“it is a draft work plan. we do expect to get feedback from the committee on the different elements that the staff are proposing for work this year,” said roger quan, metro vancouver’s director of air quality and climate change.
however, quan said the task is to find ways of tightening ambient air-quality objectives, essentially the benchmarks for acceptable concentrations of pollutants in outdoor air, through measures other than the site-specific permits that metro vancouver issues to industrial operations.
for example, quan said the proposed amendment for regulations on nitrogen-oxide emissions from boilers and furnaces, in commercial, residential and industrial use, is a response to new federal standards for emissions from natural gas combustion.
nitrogen oxide contributes to ground-level ozone and fine-particulate in the air, which both have human-health impacts, quan added.
“from time to time, those objectives change and it’s very consistent with our principle of continuous improvement in air quality,” quan said.
metro vancouver, and most canadian jurisdictions, have “been pretty successful in getting rid of the big, really dirty sources of pollution,” said air-quality expert michael brauer, a professor in the school of population and public health at the university of b.c.
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“(but) we pretty clearly know now that for most air pollutants, there are no safe levels, so really, you need to keep reducing,” brauer said, especially since it is also clear that the unpredictable impacts of wildfire smoke will keep increasing.
“(wildfire impacts are) already sort of dominating our air quality issues kind of on a seasonal basis,” he added.
wildfire events have been clearly linked to increased incidences of asthma, ambulance dispatches and hospital admissions.
“just in terms of health care resources, every time we have a wildfire we see increases in all sorts of uses of health care,” brauer said.
communities in b.c.’s interior, such as castlegar, kamloops and prince george, have had bigger impacts from wildfire smoke, according to data collated by the b.c. lung association in its 2022 state of the air report.
however, brauer said if communities experience two to three weeks each summer of degraded air quality due to wildfire, that is going to cause long-term harm to health.
quan noted that in metro vancouver, six of the last eight summers have been affected by wildfire smoke, for which the regional district does its best to warn the public about health risks and the need for those at risk to take shelter.
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“you want to at least be starting from the lowest baseline as you can,” with pollution sources that you can control, brauer added. “it gives you more reason to do as much as you possibly can with those conditional sources.”
carr said metro vancouver also has a leadership role in lobbying municipalities and senior levels of government on building standards for filtering indoor air quality and helping citizens find refuge from those uncontrolled wildfire impacts.
“the impetus in the regional district is for member municipalities to be thinking about their safe centres for people to go to,” carr said. “because we can issue air advisories at the regional district, what every municipality needs is safe places and retreats.”
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