A familiar Prince George feature was back, this weekend. It had been gone so long its return caught even locals off guard. But there was that ol' stink in the air again.
"What's got me baffled is, we only had two or three complaints when the values were really high on the weekend, and then when the values were lower three, four days later we had a lot of complaints," said Ministry of Environment air quality meteorologist Dennis Fudge. He chalked that up to people perhaps not realizing they could report bad air even on the weekend, perhaps a lot of people were gone from town over the holiday, or people needing a few days in a row to gather the anger about it.
What's causing the stink is not known. Fudge said the stuff is not fine particulate, nitrogen dioxide or sulphur dioxide. It is some combination of the four airborne chemicals measured by the ministry's Total Reduced Sulphur index. That was the only graph in the ministry's pollution monitors that spiked.
But wow did it spike. Normal readings on that chart are between 7 and 20 parts per billion. These ones were in the 200s and the top single minute of the past few days was 350 parts per billion.
This did not cause an emergency. It is something the ministry must get to the bottom of, said Fudge, but lives were not put at risk by this upsurge.
"We are in frequent contact with industry - there are a number of sources for these chemicals - and none called us to tell us something happened, and when we called around to ask about it specifically we were told there was nothing unusual happening anywhere," Fudge said.
"We are studying the data now, trying to figure it out."
The machinery itself will be checked to ensure there were no malfunctions but early indications are, the metres were operating correctly.
The wind, at the time the upsurge took place, was coming from the north and northeast.
Fudge said the air conditions had greatly improved on the smelly kinds of chemicals the local airshed used to endure, but almost imperceptibly to some, the stink has faded in the past few years. Environmental conditions are partially responsible for this, as is mechanical upgrades at the pulp mills. Now, during this burp, people were suddenly reminded of it.
Anytime you smell trouble on the breeze, the Ministry of Environment asks that you call the local bad air hotline: 250-565-4487 and describe where it is, what it smells like, and what the time is. Even if you don't want to divulge your name and address, he said, the information is critical in tracking any bad air events.
