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Environment Scrutiny Panel Jersey Air Quality Review
In response to your advertisement on this subject from the Jersey Evening Post on Friday 5th. October 2007.
- Why does Jersey not adopt a strategy similar to The Air Quality Strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland introduced and required by the Environment Act 1995 and the National Air Quality Strategy? This would give the States a more coherent approach to this subject. As part of this more coherent approach would it not be feasible for the States to approach the assessment of local air quality, in future by using a combination of measurement, and modelling techniques. As you are probably aware a number of computer driven Air Dispersal Modelling Systems are readily available, and would lead to a more accurate assessment of air quality throughout the Island.
- From information ascertained from the States website a large reliance appears to have been made from the results obtained from diffusion tubes. Can you confirm that these have, or have not been, bias adjusted against a continuous analyser within the Island? This type of screening measurement technique often shows a considerable amount of over, or under- read dependent upon local circumstances and analysis technique. As a large reliance on these tube results appears to have been made it be be interesting to receive clarification on this.
- For the benefit / perception of both the local population and indeed the large amount of visitors to the Island would it not be beneficial to set up a "Real Time" Air Monitoring site or perhaps sites as are currently operated on the mainland for DEFRA by the Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN). These stations measure a number of pollutants and information is updated hourly on to the National Air Quality Information Archive website at www.airquality.co.uk and is also available on a number of other sources i.e. Teletext, & Free-phone.
I do realise that the States currently operate a couple of Particulate monitors but the data from them is not for "Real Time" purposes. Additionally as car ownership per capita is exceptionally high within the Island would it not be beneficial to have a NOx instrument / instruments also at site specific / receptor locations as part of a small network?
I do realise that the above comments only "scratch" the surface of Air Quality within Jersey, but thought that you might be interested in my brief views on this subject. As a regular visitor to visit members of my family within the Island I do hope that they might be of interest to you / members of the panel.
Chris Washington.