CASA featured at 2022 Next Generation Ambient Air Monitoring Conference

Pictured above: Mallory Jutzi presents at the 2022 Next Generation Ambient Air Monitoring Conference on September 13, 2022. Photo courtesy of RWDI

The Air & Waste Management Association; the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP); Environment and Climate Change Canada; and the Canadian Fuels Association recently co-hosted the 2022 Next Generation Ambient Air Monitoring Conference in London, Ontario on September 13-14, 2022. This two-day conference brought together regulators, vendors, industry and communities to cover topics on current use of ambient air monitoring and evolving technologies.  

Mallory Jutzi, an Air Quality Analyst representing the Southwest Region of the MECP, spoke at the conference and gave a very informative presentation on the foundation of Clean Air Sarnia and Area (CASA) and the Sarnia-Lambton air monitoring network. Mallory shared that air monitoring has been conducted in the Sarnia area since the 1950’s, and CASA was formed in 2015 with representatives from the public, government agencies, First Nations, and local industry to provide the community with information on local air quality and better provide public access to real-time air monitoring data.  

Mallory provided conference attendees with some background information on the work that was done to develop CASA through the formation of a community advisory panel, with a key focus on developing a fully integrated air monitoring network with the ability to share data in a format that is both easy to read and easy to understand.  After two years of vigorous planning and testing, the CASA website went live to the public in February 2018. The website includes a map of all area air monitoring stations and includes easy-to-read graphs showing 24-hour data for various pollutants at each station.  

The local air monitoring network has been continuously developed over the past 70 years through monitoring instrumentation updates which have broadened the suite of monitored pollutants, and by adding additional monitoring stations to expand geographical coverage. The local air shed network currently consists of 13 air monitoring stations, stretching from Sarnia to Sombra, that report on 12 different airborne pollutants. 

Shown above is a map of CASA air monitoring stations (left), an air monitoring station located at the Aamjiwnaang Daycare Centre (middle), and a sample CASA data graph (right). Source: CASA website

For more information about CASA and to access real-time air monitoring data for the Sarnia-Lambton area, visit the CASA website – https://www.cleanairsarniaandarea.com/