Wet Towels and Tackling Air Pollution

Went to bed with a wet towel the other night. Hard to believe, it wasn’t intentional, the towel had been there all day under the duvet. I was shocked because there hasn’t been much (as in nothing) on that side of the bed in a while, well, a while plus, plus, plus a bit more. Who thought my life could be so full of plusses. Mostly, I think it shrieks desperation, disappointment and another “d” I can’t think of. 

But hey, onwards and upwards. I’m still listening to Zero 7, because and for the record, I’m getting noughties (2000s) retro in before anyone else. 

And I did something vaguely useful on the weekend other than navel gazing, and while it’s a stretch to call it volunteering, let’s call it that. It was at a neighbourhood forum on air quality. I pointed out there weren’t any cups for the coffee…

… and served cookies at the break. 

There is a big story here, a lead Walrus type of story.

The Port of Vancouver is undergoing a massive expansion to handle 2.7 million containers just outside of the downtown and they haven’t carried out an environmental assessment of the impact on the surrounding community. 

Digest that. 

The Port of Vancouver haven’t…

Huh??? 

Yes, they haven’t carried out an environmental assessment on the impact on the surrounding communities!

You’d imagine this happening in China or Putin’s Russia, not in Vancouver where people get in a hissy fit over their community gardens on CN Rail land being threatened by CN Rail. Except that’s the posher, wealthier westside, where they rail against a property surtax on those homes worth over $4m. 

Down on the eastside, well, people would have to be birds before the impacts would be considered. Put a bird on it Vancouver, and you’ll be fine.

There’s a big story here: the Federal government under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives handed power to the Port to do what they wanted and they have.

There’s a big story here: the main road corridor of Clark /Knight has higher pollution than Toronto’s legendary 401.  

There’s a big story here: the Provincial government under former Premier Christy Clark dropped the ball on environmental assessment. 

There’s also a mystery. In 2017 the City approved of a $225 million plan largely funded by the Feds and CN Rail to help mitigate the effects of the port expansion. The City would have been handed the assets after completion. What happened after 2017? asked Stratchcona resident, Trefor Smith at a council hearing a few days after the forum.

“Well that’s a good question.” responded Councillor Hardwick.

Watch SRA member Trefor Smith take on City council at 11:11am.

There’s a big story here: a local billionaire influencing the city not to run an arterial adjacent to his light industrial but on a residential street the City has previously adopted three motions to traffic calm. Bad for business, it’s claimed, but we all know it’s a matter of time before it’s rezoned for condos.

And City of Vancouver Engineering refused to run an arterial on the most obvious route because of money.

There’s a big story here: I’m running out of breath.

But there’s more. City of Vancouver Engineering supporting the port and CN rail over the community to twin the rail corridor that will do god knows what to diesel train traffic. This one’s slightly more complicated because there was a quid pro quo the city could have done for the neighbourhood but failed by not committing to permanently calm a busy road.

There’s big story here: the City has too few councillors (12) to take the time to fully comprehend the issues and the decisions made. The London Borough of Barnet is 3/4 the size of the City of Vancouver with 300,000 less people and has 63 councillors. Depending on your indoctrination, you could argue for either level of representation. But I have the distinct feeling, twelve is a failure.

That’s a lot of story, I should write a screenplay or something, or become a documentarian. 

The community doesn’t want to stop the development but wants help to mitigate the impacts on them. Sunday was an opportunity to learn how to empower themselves against this heavy hitting story. You wonder, how do they step up?

Collaboration. Partnerships

At the forum were two representatives from Metro Vancouver, a City Councillor, a UBC prof (an air quality scientist) who is running a small air monitoring program (which needs further funding), and via Skype, the Co-Director of the West Oakland Indicators Project, an American community that had/has the same issues.  There are differences between the US and Canada, significantly Port Authorites are elected in the US and in Canada they’re not. Cue the menacing background music.

At the end, it felt a network of support had been constructed. The community will have to monitor air quality, they will need help, funding, there was enthusiasm to get schools and their students involved. This was largely a silver haired gathering, and good to note it’s not just the young interested in their own future.

It was affecting and powerful. 

Ultimately this was democracy in action and it could never be clearer how important a vote at the federal level is and why we must exercise that right. The air quality of this community will come down to the federal government setting and enforcing standards.

The community needs to know government won’t shirk their responsibility, but can they?

Short of becoming birds, they can also draw on the history of this community to fight for their rights and follow the earlier activism of the Militant Mothers of Raymur. See. There is a big story here.

For the rest us, we should know that pollution from arterials travels as far as two blocks either side, and us Vancouverites, who take our air quality for granted, shouldn’t be complacent. It’s not the black snot levels of London but there is a great deal of variation depending where you live. We need effective monitoring. But mostly, why the hell am I not wearing a face mask when cycling.