Air Quality Monitoring coming to Sapperton and 6th and Front Streets

On Monday, September 29th, I spoke at city hall and thanked City council for the support they had given the McBride Sapperton Residents’ Association’s request to Metro Vancouver for an air quality monitoring station in Sapperton.

Sapperton, and indeed all of New Westminster, has many issues impacting our air quality. We have certain industries in the Braid Industrial area that are allowed to discharge into the atmosphere and we have the diesel particulate from the many trains and traffic that traverses our fair City. As president of the association I have spoken at City Hall over the last many years about some of the other issues faced by Sappertonians. I have asked for E.8th Avenue, E. Columbia and Braid Streets to no longer be truck routes so that we don’t have diesel particulate being spewed through our neighbourhoods.

I’ve also tried to alert people to the implications of the additional traffic that will result from the province’s Gateway Project. Twinning the Port Mann bridge (which will make it that much more appealing for people to live in the sprawling communities south of the Fraser) will not ease traffic and pollution in our neighbourhoods. By encouraging people to live in communities where land is being removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve and then have them drive 30-40 kilometres to work will not help our air quality. We presently have the Port Mann operating as a natural traffic control valve into our communities. As we remove this valve we encourage people who have been carpooling or taking alternatives to get back into their cars and race across the new lanes of the Port Mann and then through our neighbourhood streets.

I’ve also spoken about our concerns regarding Metro Vancouver’s attempted expropriation of the Canfor lands and the increased truck traffic and emissions an incinerator would bring. Presently Metro Vancouver and Port Metro Vancouver are battling over ownership of this site. Either of these authorities will bring a serious increase in regional truck traffic to our city.

It was due to these concerns, and in particular the Canfor expropriation, that I wrote a letter on behalf of the McBride Sapperton Residents’ Association and asked the City and the Fraser Health Authority to back our request to Metro Vancouver to have an air monitoring station in Sapperton. I was very happy to hear that over the next year Metro Vancouver will be having an air monitoring station in the Sapperton Park area. When I spoke before council I was also delighted to hear that council had requested that some mobile testing be included. The data Metro Vancouver gathers on air pollutants, ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter can be used as a baseline for New Westminster to consider when approving any future developments in the area.

- Neil Powell