Tag Archives: ACAA

Capital Region Air Quality

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I attended the Alberta Capital Airshed Alliance (ACAA) AGM this past week.

I learned that the emmissions of pollutants ( NOx, SO2, PM2.5) are roughly emmitting by these sectors in our region:

50% – transportation (cars, trucks, buses, etc.)
25% – large industrial sources (such as refineries, etc.)
25% – other sources – med and small industry, offices, malls, etc. Etc.

So, with continuing significant population growth and development in the capital region, to maintain our mostly Alberta blue skies, we must effectively manage our emissions from transportation. That requires action by a lot of people.

And, we see some of those. The UPass system must be encouraging the adoption/use of transit – a practise that we will want students to continue as they move from studying to “work” in other places. The City’s (with support from the province etc.) Development of LRT and other transit initiatives is a long-term investment in air quality. The federal governments recent announcements of car standards is yet one more action.

How can the ACAA help advance continuing progress? Or, should the ACAA focus efforts on the other 50% of emission sources?

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Suncor upset conditions

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On March 19th, the Suncor refinery in east Edmonton recorded a upset in their operating that resulted in plumes of smoke.

Yesterday, the Sherwood Park News reported that the Province of Alberta was awaiting further technical details from Suncor.  The paper specifically reports that:

At the time of the first sample there was a 0.278 mg/m3 concentration of particulate matter at the refinery fence line and 1.00 mg/m3 at Petroleum Way/Steambank Avenue.

I am thinking I don’t understand the units or the units have been mis-reported.  For example, the Conference Board of Canada has a site that compares particulate matter across Canada and between Canada and other countries.  Average numbers reported are typically 15 to 30 microgram per cubic metre.  The highest number above is 278 microgram per cubic metre.  Am I right in this?

The Edmonton Journal reported on this on March 20th.  There are a couple interesting pieces in that report.

It notes that a Suncor spokesperson identified that there were no exceedences of provincial air quality limits reported.  A future post on this — I wonder what parameters are measured and whether they are reliable indicators for this kind of incident.

Chris Severinson-Baker from the Pembina Institute suggested people in Sherwood Park should have questions about this and noted that the monitors likely would not have measured the hydrocarbons that were emitted.

How do we access information to determine whether we should be concerned or not? Could we have more open data concerning emissions? Do we even have the capacity to determine emissions from such a process upset?