The Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) unveiled its newest air quality monitoring station in Mission, making it the Fraser Valley Regional District’s sixth station.
The station is located next to École Mission secondary school. The FVRD has two stations in Abbotsford – near the airport and at Mill Lake Park. The others are in Chilliwack, Hope and Agassiz. Together, the FVRD stations form part of the Lower Fraser Valley air quality monitoring network, which comprises 28 permanent stations from Horseshoe Bay to Hope.
“It is important to the FVRD that air quality in all Fraser Valley communities is monitored, and so we budgeted accordingly to extend our air quality monitoring network," FVRD chief administrative officer Paul Gipps said. "By adding a monitoring station in Agassiz in 2013 and now this one in Mission, we are now able to monitor air quality in our eastern valley communities north of the Fraser River.”
The Mission station monitors a variety of air pollutants, including fine particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to the calculation of the Air Quality Health Index, a tool designed to communicate health messaging on air quality. It also measures meteorological parameters such as wind speed and precipitation.
Air quality readings from established FVRD sites can be found at www.bcairquality.ca/readings/ although the site does not yet include data from Mission.