June 15, 2006 Toronto Star

905 can get pretty smoggy, too
It's not just Toronto that has poor air quality Experts say GTA's air will only get worse

Stan Josey

Lacrosse was around a long time before smog came along.

But it is only lately that players of Canada's first national sport, who seldom stop running during a game, are starting to feel the effects of bad air in the Greater Toronto Area.

"Breathing breaks" are becoming more and more common in outdoor sports such as the rapid-fire lacrosse, says Kevin Caplice, a Junior B level referee from Oakville.

"On high smog days, which usually are hot and humid as well, it is a rough go to referee or play the game," says the 35-year-old, who used a pedometer to confirm he runs up to 6.4 kilometres during the highly intense games.

Even goaltenders, who do the least amount of running, are feeling the effects of bad air, he says.

"The air has to be bad when you have to stop the game to give the goalie a break," he says.

The woes of oxygen-starved lacrosse players and hard-breathing citizens in general were heard during the seventh annual clean air summit that took place earlier this month.

More than 300 politicians, experts and environmental advocates were told again that the air in the GTA is bad and will get much worse over the next two decades while the population centre of Canada is forecast to grow to more than 7 million people.

Representatives of 20 local governments in the GTA and the provincial and federal governments signed a "declaration on clean air" designed to create more public awareness and create programs to reduce smog and greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will encourage more research, public education and action.

People in Toronto know their air is bad, but in the 905 areas, not as many residents are as savvy as Caplice when it comes to recognizing the quality of the air they breathe.

Conference facilitator Eva Ligeti said 905 commuters feel they leave the bad air behind when they jump in their cars or on public transit and head to their homes in the hills of Caledon, the orchards of Clarington or Canada's automotive capital - Oshawa.

A public opinion poll prepared for the summit found there is a "massive underestimation" of the amount of air pollution outside the downtown core.

Ligeti, of the Clean Air Partnership, says air sampling has shown bad air days across the entire GTA a record number of times in the past year.

"There is some kind of a misconception that the pollution stops or gets better once you head north of Steeles Ave. or farther east or west in the GTA," she said. "The truth is that residents living away from downtown Toronto have an overestimated perception of their air quality."

Interviews conducted with 452 people across the GTA by Oraclepoll Research in May showed that on average 62 per cent of those living in the 905 regions felt their air quality was "significantly better" than that in downtown Toronto.

But the number of smog advisory days - when the elderly or those with breathing problems are advised to take precautions - were exactly the same throughout the entire GTA at 48 days.

"The reality is that you have to drive at least four hours away from the GTA to get appreciably better air quality."

That could justify the weekly Friday and Sunday ritual of the long slow trek to cottage country.

Statistics provided by the Ontario Medical Association show that you are almost as likely to die of smog-related problems in the 905 area as in the city of Toronto

An estimated 1,500 people die in the city each year due to smog- related problems, while the figure in the 905 is slightly less at 1,100.

Ligeti wonders if last summer, with a record 48 smog alert days and 26 heat alerts, is a portent of things to come.

"Scientists warn that our summers are heating up and getting smoggier. The outlook is not good for our health in this region," she said.

Ligeti said all levels of government in Canada and the U.S. have to work collaboratively to break a vicious cycle of global warning that the experts say is leading to more smog days and heat alerts. "If we don't, where is it all going to stop and will our cities remain liveable?"