New air quality monitoring station added to City of New Westminster

New Westminster –  Metro Vancouver, in partnership with the City of New Westminster, has added a new air quality monitoring station in the Sapperton neighbourhood of the city. This new station is the 29^th permanent station in the Lower Fraser Valley Air Quality Monitoring Network and shares an existing building in Sapperton Park.

The installation of the new station follows from an extensive air quality monitoring study conducted by Metro Vancouver in New Westminster during 2009-2010. During that study, air quality monitoring equipment was installed at four sites in the city, including the Front Street Parkade and Sapperton Park. The study showed that air quality in New Westminster is not always well represented by existing monitoring network stations and that commuter and commercial traffic has a significant influence on air quality in the city. The new station will provide more representative measurements of the levels of air contaminants occurring in New Westminster.

“The installation of a new permanent air quality monitoring station in New Westminster is a great asset for our city and is situated in an ideal location in a busy commercial area close to the hospital, residential homes, schools, and a major transportation corridor,” said Mayor Jonathan X. Coté. “Additionally, residents will benefit from having access to near real-time air quality information online.”

The pollutants monitored at the station include ground-level ozone, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which can be used to calculate an Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). The data collected at the New Westminster air quality monitoring station are now available online at AirMap.ca.

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Contact:

Jennifer Lukianchuk
Environmental Coordinator
City of New Westminster
or 604-515-3780