A new Sarnia air monitoring website has officially launched at Aamjiwnaang First Nation.
It allows visitors, at a glance, to view contaminant levels from seven air monitoring stations in the Sarnia area.
Manager of Technical Support at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Dan McDonald says the information will be refreshed every hour and users will be able to clearly understand whether air quality is good, moderate or poor, compared to provincial standards. He says this will help improve the overall air quality in the community.
"People can take more progressive actions quicker as they see trends throughout the year," he says. "In previous iterations of this, we had to wait until all the data was collected and then for it to be accessed. In this way, the ministry and public will have access to this information as it occurs."
McDonald says they'll be hoping to add two more air monitoring stations in Sarnia-Lambton in the coming months.
The monitoring data shows that air quality in Sarnia has improved over the last ten years, but the ministry still believes more can be done. This is why they've begun work to fund a new health study to better understand the localized impact of air pollution in the community.
The website was the vision of a community advisory panel called Clean Air Sarnia and Area (CASA) that was formed in 2015 to discuss ways to make air quality information available to the public and improve the air monitoring network.
Residents can learn more about the website cleanairsarniaandarea.com at an open house March 29 from 1pm until 3pm at the Sarnia-Lambton YMCA.
