Thank Mother Nature, not city, for smog-free summer: group
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 CBC News
An environmental watchdog says Toronto's relatively smog-free summer was a case of good luck with the weather rather than good planning. The Toronto Environmental Alliance released a report Tuesday that gives the city a C-for its efforts over the past year to battle pollutants.
The group says 2006 was one of the best years for low smog, but it was not thanks to the city. Instead, they credited regular rains and citizens' conservation efforts. In 2006, the city issued smog alerts on 11 days, the fewest number of alert days in five years. Last year, the city had a record number of smog alert days at 48. The city received a grade of B+ last year, its best grade over the past decade.
"We had a lovely summer but that was largely because it rained regularly and washed all that pollution out of the air," Keith Stewart, who worked as a consultant on the report, told CBC. "That was basically Mother Nature doing us a favour." The poor grade comes as part of the group's ninth annual smog report card which measures the city's progress in implementing a 1998 smog plan to improve air quality and other subsequent promises on air quality issues.
The report rated the city poorly for lacking any long-term, anti-smog vision.
However, it praised Toronto for greening its fleet of vehicles and pressing other levels of government for air-quality action. Officials were criticized for falling behind on making Toronto more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
As for energy efficiency, the group said the city was good on resolutions but weak on actions.
Meanwhile, Toronto Hydro was applauded for its good work in reducing electricity usage.
TEA Smog Report 2006
TEA
City of Toronto Anti-Smog Programs
1 comment:
Regrettably, this isn't as harsh a report as the City deserves, in part due to the close links between one of the TEA stalwarts and the civic NDP as Gord Perks is now the Miller/Pantalone choice for the west end. Gord has been quite silent relatively on the Front St. Extension, even though catering to cars with a quarter-billion gift while missing transit options is such a big scandal really.To quote from the TEA report "when will the city ever get to tackling the real cause of this pollution" and wrestle with the cars? Hmm?
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