CARSTAIRS - Town council has declined an invitation from the Parkland Airshed Management Zone (PAMZ) to join the air monitoring organization, whose current members include Mountain View and Red Deer counties.
The move came during the recent council meeting, with council accepting the invitation as information only.
PAMZ is a multi-stakeholder non-profit organization that monitors and addresses air quality issues in west central Alberta.
In a letter sent to the town, longtime PAMZ executive director Kevin Warren said, “As this time we are extending an invitation to the Town of Carstairs to join other local municipalities (in) PAMZ.”
Member municipalities “have recognized the benefits participating in a multi-stakeholder consensus-based process aimed at ensuring air quality in our region is maintained or improved into the future,” he said.
Along with the letter, Warren included an invoice outlining the potential cost of joining PAMZ for Carstairs: $1,570.91 for 2023.
Carstairs deputy mayor Dean Allan said the decision to decline the invitation to join PAMZ had principally to do with the fact the town has no heavy industrial emitters.
“Councillors felt it wasn’t appropriate at this time due to our lack of industrial business we have in town,” Allan told the Albertan. “That was the main thing. We didn’t think it was right at this time.”
It was first time PAMZ had approached the Town of Carstairs about joining the organization, he said.
PAMZ has been in operation in west central Alberta for 23 years.
