School air testing rejected
June 1, 2006

The Red Hill Valley Neighbourhood Association (RHVNA) wants the city to start monitoring air pollution at Elizabeth Bagshaw school on the eastern edge of the Red Hill expressway. The group's lawyer, Eric Gillespie, made the request at Monday's meeting of the expressway implementation committee but didn't get what he wanted.

Elizabeth Bagshaw School.

Gillespie advocated doing one year of monitoring at the Albright Road school prior to the opening of the expressway in the fall of 2007 "to develop a full annual recording of baseline information regarding air quality in all four seasons" so that can be compared to the readings after the road is opened. He said RHVNA has been advised by air quality expert Dr David Pengelly that this is the most appropriate location for such monitoring and Gillespie offered Pengelly's assistance in designing the monitoring program.

But project director Chris Murray said the city is only required to do six months of pre-operation air monitoring and that was carried out a couple of years ago at the corner of King Street and Mount Albion Road.

Ward four councillor Sam Merulla responded to Gillespie by arguing that the provincial government should re-install an air monitoring station in east Hamilton that was shut down in August 1996, something he said he asked for a year ago "but unfortunately it's fallen on deaf ears". Gillespie suggested this wasn't likely going to change in the near future.

Merulla moved that the committee re-state the city's position to the province and suggested that air monitoring stations should also be set up on the 403 and Lincoln Alexander Parkway as well as on Centennial Parkway at Barton Street. "I don't think any part of this city should go without," he declared, a position supported by Chad Collins and Maria Pearson.

As an alternative to monitoring at Bagshaw, Merulla suggested using data collected on Woodward near the QEW. Gillespie responded that the school site was more appropriate because "it is obviously children that tend to be more susceptible" to air pollution and because previous studies had fingered Bagshaw as likely to face much higher levels of pollution once the expressway opened.

Dave Braden suggested the city would be wise to accept Gillespie's suggestion. "I think we should push ourselves to get good information so we have it on record," declared Braden. "If we're going to get sued ten years from now, and we didn't get the information that we should have got, I think we're going to look pretty pathetic."

RHVNA also wants a community liaison committee established to consider other expressway-related concerns such as construction dust, noise and effects on property values. The association previously gave notice that it is prepared to take the city to court to get compensation for negative effects of the expressway on the value of several hundred homes along the valley.

Chad Collins suggested that the implementation committee exists to deal with these concerns and asked that expressway staff respond to RHVNA's request at the next meeting.