Hamilton pollution crawl invites residents to learn about air quality issues

Environment Hamilton and the Coalition Against Pollution have organized an out-of-the-ordinary walking tour of the city’s east end.

Pollution Crawl East will take residents down Burlington and Ottawa Streets as well as Industrial Drive where they will be able to take in views of different manufacturing operations and their emission points.

Environment Hamilton’s executive director, Lynda Lukasik, says the crawl aims to show what constitutes an air quality concern and how to report it.

“If you see discolouration, you know, black, green, orange, brown, coming out, chances are you’re looking at a problem” she said.

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“We encourage people when they see something like that, ideally, to photo document.”

From there, Lukasik says a report can be sent to the company and the environment ministry, much like what was done when a particulate plume appeared over ArcelorMital Dofasco, earlier this month.

It was the result of a process known as “coffining” where excess liquid iron is poured into pits.

When there is moisture in the pit, Lukasik says there is the potential to see activity with particulate.

Environment Hamilton has documented 15 cases, so far, this year.

The incident over Thanksgiving weekend caught the attention of Hamilton city council, which approved a motion calling on the environment ministry to ensure the company complies with site-specific performance standards.

Since that time, the company has sent a letter to the environment ministry stating that it has assembled a team of experts to “deploy additional technologies and make process reconfigurations to eliminate eruptions and emissions.”

It’s a plan that Environment Hamilton hopes to learn more about at community liaison meeting Nov. 9.

Until then, they will be working to equip residents with the tools they need to spot air pollution.

“What we want is for there to be more eyes and ears out there and people willing to take that step of documenting and reporting,” Lukasik said. “It’s just not appropriate that the community has to be dealing with those kinds of emissions into an already compromised airshed.”

The pollution crawl will start at the Centre on Barton at 10 a.m. Saturday.