Letter - Emissions blow my way

My home is WSW of Ogden Point. Emissions from cruise ships often blow my way. I logged the 2012 season, and experienced fumes 10 to 12 days per month, sometimes for hours on end. But unfortunately many people, including city officials and the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, will not credit resident reports that are not verified by air monitoring devices.

During fume events I have noticed that, depending on wind speed and direction, the spread of a ship exhaust plume may be as narrow as only the width of a few houses. Therefore one house may experience fumes while next door does not. A neighbour told me she was forced off her west balcony by fumes at the same time as her east balcony was clear. Narrow tracks make it impossible to monitor fumes without having devices every hundred feet or so.

Plumes may also be vertically defined. I compare notes with a neighbour who lives in direct line to the ships from me, but on the fourth floor. It is evident that at that height she receives more pollution. Therefore to track all fume events, monitors would have to be placed at different heights around the neighbourhood.

To require "proof" of resident complaints is unrealistic and unfair. But habitual gainsayers and people with vested interests in the cruise industry will never stop calling for "facts" and "science". Still, the facts speak for themselves. When cruise ships burn bunker fuel, as most if not all do, they are (knowingly and deliberately, and with the knowledge and permission of GVHA and city officials) burning the crudest and most highly polluting fuel possible. The fumes are exhausted out of the ship stacks and carried by the wind. The prevailing winds in James Bay are onshore, and therefore always have the potential to carry the noxious fumes into our homes and gardens. People, pets, and urban wildlife caught in their path will be distressed.

R Magnusson