One of the key scientists who will attempt to answer concerns about dust from the proposed Ajax mine is a former Kamloops resident who would one day like to move back here.
Peter Reid, a senior associate for air quality with consulting firm Stantec, is one of the consultants on hand at the two-day open house meeting at Coast Kamloops Hotel and Conference Centre.
In the early 1990s, Reid was an air quality meteorologist with the Ministry of Environment in Kamloops. He left government to work in the private sector. Five years ago he worked as a consultant on Domtar’s revised stack placement for the Kamloops pulp mill that determined where particulate would be dispersed.
Reid said the city is fortunate to have three years of data through a meteorological model done by engineering firm Levelton Consultants Ltd.
“We’ve used it once with the valley (for Domtar) and it’s done a good job here.”
Mines typically battle with fugitive dust and critics have questioned whether there are adequate monitoring stations to determine wind and weather patterns in the upper valley at Aberdeen and the plateau to the south, where Ajax is located.
Environment Canada and provincial stations are located in the valley.
Reid said there is one City of Kamloops station in Aberdeen and potential to gain information through other meteorological stations.
Through the existing modeling, scientists can also compare simulated winds in computer modeling to real winds in the area under study. That way they can determine how well the models, called CALMET (meteorology) and CALPUF (pollution distribution), predict reality here.
“We test how the model works,” said Reid, cautioning the work is in the early stages.
Reid said the modeling is so sophisticated it is sometimes used in criminal investigations to determine what direction winds may have blown at a certain time when there is no actual data available.
Based in Calgary with Stantec, the former downtown resident said he misses Kamloops and would like to eventually move back to the city.
“My wife is looking at real estate,” he said.
