New Brunswick measures air quality before shale gas exploration, Wants to set baseline, says environment minister

New Brunswick measures air quality before shale gas exploration, Wants to set baseline, says environment minister by CBC News, August 30, 2012
New Brunswick’s Department of Environment has begun monitoring air quality in Sussex to create a baseline before any possible shale gas developments in the area. It’s a proactive step, said Environment Minister Bruce Fitch. The province’s only mobile monitoring unit will stay there for about a year, he said. “Then they’ll move the mobile unit to another location to see if there’s any changes from an ambient or baseline in the monitoring.”
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The department will be keeping a close eye on volatile organic compound levels (VOC) in the Saint John area, Fitch said. Although the VOC levels have gone down over the years, they remain the highest at Champlain Heights in Saint John. Any amount can be a danger to human health, according to clean air activists like Dalzell. “It’s encouraging that they’ll hopefully continue to go down. But we have to be vigilant and work with industry and our own personal choices to reduce some of these emissions that cause those VOCs, those chemicals,” he said. VOCs also contribute to ground level ozone and smog. Despite the adverse effects of VOCs, there are no national standards for the compounds in Canada. New Brunswick relies on standards used in Sweden and the U.K.