Five Years of Work in Less Than 500 Words

A couple of news outlets, including the CBC, picked up on a little story that broke toward the end of the day on Thursday, October 11.  It went like this:

Lake Louise – October 11, 2012 – Federal, provincial and territorial Environment Ministers are taking further action to protect the health of Canadians and the environment with measures to improve air quality in Canada, through a comprehensive new Air Quality Management System (AQMS). A flexible approach to implementation will assist jurisdictions to ensure good air quality outcomes while maintaining competitiveness in all regions of Canada.

“There is nothing more fundamental to Canadians than clean air,” said Diana McQueen, Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. “The AQMS builds on measures that jurisdictions already have in place, and helps to align the actions of federal, provincial and territorial governments to deal with air quality issues.”

“The System is the result of unprecedented collaboration by governments and stakeholders over the past five years,” said McQueen, who hosted her colleagues at the annual CCME meeting. “We’re grateful for the contributions made by the hundreds of stakeholders who participated in this ground-breaking work.”


The AQMS includes:

• Standards to set the bar for outdoor air quality management across the country; 
• Industrial emission requirements that set a base level of performance for major industries in Canada;
• A framework for air zone management within provinces and territories that enables action tailored to specific sources of air emissions in a given area
• Regional airsheds that facilitate coordinated action when air pollution crosses a border; and
• An intergovernmental working group to improve collaboration and develop a plan to reduce emissions from the transportation sector.
 


Governments have agreed on new standards under the AQMS for fine particulate matter and ozone, the two main components of smog. Work has also begun on new standards for sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which are significant components of air pollution.

There's more to the announcement than this, but you get the idea.

Or, maybe not.  In the five years that I've worked on the AQMS I have learned that "air quality" is a concept people do get in that they breathe air and would prefer that it be of the highest quality.  And it's a concept they don't get when some pointy-headed official like me starts gassing on about micrograms per cubic metre and the difference between emission standards and ambient standards.

For my work, in cases where comprehension is important, I write Qs & As to help everyone understand each other.  I think I can do this in one:

Q: What the heck is AQMS and why does it matter?

A: AQMS in its essence is the common-sensical agreement by governments that they will stop passing the ball (of controlling air pollution) back and forth between them and will start to work together instead.  It matters because we need air to live.

There you go.

Here's a link to a blog with many lovely pictures of Lake Louise where the momentous achievement in common sense took place.

Have a great week!

Karen