County Health District: Air quality may improve this weekend

EPHRATA — While the air over Eastern Washington is expected to start clearing this weekend, Grant County Health officials are still concerned that the air may not improve enough in time for the state of the Grant County Fair next week.

“It’s still not healthy for vulnerable populations, especially children,” said Jon Ness, and environmental health manager with Grant County Health District. “The concern here is continued exposure. People should be very mindful of the impact of future health.”

“We’re monitoring the smoke forecast with the fair coming up,” Ness said. “We’re looking forward to some relief next week.”

Washington has been beset by smoke from a number of forest fires in British Columbia for the last two weeks. Currently, according to a Department of Ecology air sensor atop City Hall, the air in Moses Lake is “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

According to the Washington Smoke Blog, the long range forecast for the Pacific Northwest anticipates the smoke will start to clear Friday evening, though it could take as much as another day for Eastern Washington and the Columbia Basin to see some relief.

Friday, Aug. 4, the air over Moses Lake was unhealthy for everyone. In response, Ness said the health district talked with the cities of Moses Lake, Ephrata, and Quincy to close their water parks and even asked the managers of the Gorge to cancel the concerts for the weekend.

“It’s difficult to close a pool, but we support this, especially on Friday when it got really bad,” Ness said. “When it’s unhealthful for all, the community health officer does not support continuing events.”

The health district has also spoken with school athletic directors to get practice moved indoors for the duration, Ness added.

Ness said the health district will have N95 masks “left over” from the last influenza outbreak available at its booth at the Grant County for anyone who might need one.

A very slow moving high pressure system over the Pacific Northwest has caused both the high temperatures as well as trapped much of the smoke from Canadian forest fires. Because of this, for the last two weeks, Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho have had some of the worst air quality in the nation.

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