High levels of coarse particulate in the air prompted provincial health and environment officials to issue a road dust advisory for Vernon on Monday morning.
Provincial officials said anyone with a chronic underlying medical condition should avoid strenuous exercise near busy roads during the advisory.
As of 8 a.m., Monday morning, the 24-hour average concentration of coarse and fine particulate matter measured in Vernon was more than 74 micrograms per cubic metre, well above the 50 micrograms per cubic metre provincial air quality target.
It’s not unusual for Vernon to face dust advisories in the late winter and early spring.
Provincial air quality meteorologist Graham Veale explained that once the snow melts, road traction material left over from winter road maintenance gets stirred by traffic.
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“The advisory will hopefully be short-lived as there’s snow in the forecast for tomorrow which should have a dampening effect on the dust,” Veale wrote in an email to Global News.
Last year the city saw a spike in the number of dust advisory days. Between late January and early April, the city was under a dust advisory for 20 days.
The city budgeted around $350,000 this year for a new vacuum street sweeper in the hopes of improving air quality.
Global News has reached out to the city to see if that piece of new equipment is ready to be deployed during this dust advisory.
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