Pollution prompts county, cities to hand out masks

MOSES LAKE — It didn’t take a government report to know that the air quality in the Columbia Basin on Friday and Saturday was bad.

But thanks to several large forest fires in southern and central British Columbia, the air over central and eastern Washington, as well as parts of Idaho, is the worst in the country right now.

Of course, simply going outside, taking a breath and smelling the air might have told you that.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Spokane, the air in most cities and towns in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho is “unhealthy,” and is expected to remain that way at least through the middle of this week.

Grant, Adams, Douglas, and Chelan counties have all been included in a NWS Air Quality Alert issued Saturday morning and in effect through noon on Wednesday.

“People with respiratory problems should limit outdoor activity and consult their physicians if necessary,” the NWS said in a statement.

The Grant County Health District, along with a number of police and fire departments across the county, have been making N95 breathing masks available at no charge to residents who are finding it difficult to breathe because of all the particulate matter in the air.

The masks are designed to filter out large particles, like construction dust or the fine particles from distant forest fires.

“(The health district) had an extremely limited supply of masks that were distributed to area city halls for vulnerable residents. Many of the cities have moved the masks to their fire department. Your best protection is to stay indoors and limit your time outside,” said a health district statement.

On its Facebook site, the City of Ephrata announced that is had a “limited number” of N95 masks to give out to anyone who needed a mask but couldn’t afford one. The Soap Lake Police also had some masks, as did the Moses Lake Fire Department, which ran out of them by Saturday morning.

“We have another 200 masks we’re getting to the Moses Lake Fire Department,” said Kathleen Nelson, manager of community health for the Grant County Health District. “Any large department store has these, and it may get to the point where folks need to buy their own.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com