Courtenay’s mayor is fighting back after a British newspaper gave the city’s air quality a failing grade.
Larry Jangula says he wants to clear the air over a recent report by the Guardian because its numbers were “out of whack with reality.”
The widely-read newspaper published the results of an air quality study last month after gathering data on dangerous air particulates in cities around the continent.
Courtenay was ranked higher than several places in California, one in Indiana, two in Pennsylvania and Regina, Sask.
“It’s really troubling because what happened is we had a lot of people who were very angry and very concerned and I had a lot of very negative, nasty calls and emails about it,” Jangula said.
The mayor says it’s incomprehensible that Courtenay’s air could be ranked so poorly.
“I have absolutely no idea where they got it or what they did,” Jangula said.
He feels that part of the city’s poor air quality numbers depend on where the readings are taken.
“It’s very close to a number of older homes that have wood burning applicances,” Jangula said. “Of course with the prevailing winds coming from those homes directly toward that monitor, I felt right away a couple of stoves could skew the entire reading.”
The group ‘Breathe Clean Air Comox Valley’ says a recent survey that looked at the relationship between burning wood and heart attacks in seniors also gathered data from eight mobile monitoring stations and it showed troubling results.
“Six of those sites were on the east side of the river, far from the fixed monitor so they fully cover both Courtenay and Comox,” member Jennell Ellis said. “What this highlights is even in places with lower wood smoke, there’s still a dramatically increased risk of heart attack for seniors.”
The mayor admits the occasional inversion creates problems, but says overall the people of Courtenay can breathe easy.
According to Jangula, an air quality report will come before the regional district within the next few weeks.
With files from CTV Vancouver Island's Gord Kurbis
