Chris Lamb, CEO of the B.C. Lung Foundation addressed a meeting of the South Cariboo Joint Committee Nov. 20 on how best to implement Carter’s Project in 100 Mile House.
The project involves the installation of 100 PurpleAir indoor and outdoor air quality monitors to help people understand what is in the air they breathe and how they can protect their lung health.
“The truth is we hadn’t really heard what had happened to Carter and what was happening in 100 Mile House with the intense wildfire smoke you were experiencing,” Lamb said.
Once they became aware of the situation they realized something needed to be done to change things. There is an enormous gap in air quality monitoring in 100 Mile House and the surrounding area, he said.
There used to be a provincial monitoring station here but it was decommissioned two to three years before the pandemic due to being expensive to maintain and the difficulty in making sure it was running constantly and producing accurate data.
With the nearest monitor 81 kilometres away, getting monitors into the area is the priority, part one of the three-part project. They are due to be installed in March, prior to wildfire season.
Lamb said they have contacted a local meteorologist who will help identify regions where it makes the most sense to have monitors. Where monitors should be installed is something they need to discuss.
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Coun. Dave Mingo said there are several geographically diverse areas to consider. Horse Lake Road is a good example of an area where smoke can settle in the evenings when there isn’t much wind. Everyone gets home around 5 p.m., Mingo said, fires up their woodstove and by 6 p.m. the smoke can be seen.
Lamb agreed that woodstove smoke can sit on top of a low-lying area for quite some time in the winter.
Part of the program involves a professor from the University of Northern BC who will visit 100 Mile once a year to calibrate the monitors and make sure they are running properly. The data relayed by the monitors will be uploaded to iqair.com for all to see in real-time.
Once installed, air quality will be examined and residents taught what is in the air and how it can affect lung health.
Part two involves treating air inside residents’ homes. Nowadays, with energy-efficient homes we seal our houses up, especially in wintertime. The question needs to be asked what, other than heat, are we trapping inside our homes?
Treating the air in our homes is not an expensive undertaking and can easily be done with materials readily available at Canadian Tire, Lamb said.
Asthma camps for children ages eight to 10 are the third part of the project. Currently, the camps are only accessible to those children living in the Lower Mainland. Lamb said they will be offering full subsidies to kids province-wide to make attending the camps possible for everyone.
There is also talk of holding camps in 100 Mile at no cost to the district.
Lamb asked the committee how best to get the information into the public’s hands. He specifically wanted to know if there were public spaces available where town halls and asthma camps could be held.
Al Richmond, area G director for the Cariboo Regional District has himself developed an allergy to wildfire smoke after the last few years. Richmond and the other directors indicated a willingness to run further community meetings at local community halls to inform the public.
“There are a lot of communities around 100 Mile House and I’m quite sure around this table that most of us could find you community halls in order to have your meetings so people could meet in Forest Grove, Interlakes, and Lac La Hache and 108 as well as the one in 100 Mile,” Richmond said, answering the question.