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It seems the air is clearing in Invercargill.
Environment Southland released the results of its air quality monitoring earlier this week which showed Invercargill and Gore have recorded their best winter air quality results since monitoring began in 2008.
The news cheered the council’s staff after the city made headlines earlier this year when a study entitled ‘‘Health and air pollution in New Zealand’’ was published based on data from 2016 which showed Invercargill had the highest air pollution death rate in New Zealand.
The study, funded by the Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, also took into account vehicle emissions, something Environment Southland (ES) doesn’t measure.
ES chief scientist Karen Wilson said this was excellent news for the health of Southlanders and it was a good indication people were making an effort to reduce the pollution from home heating appliances, which were the biggest contributors to air pollution in the region.
She said Gore recorded zero exceedances of the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality in 2022, meaning it had met the necessary legislative requirements for two years in a row. In the same period, Invercargill recorded two exceedances, an improvement on three exceedances in 2021.
While this was above the required standard of no more than one exceedance in a 12-month period, it was the city’s best result on record.
“We know our results are affected by weather conditions and we have been lucky to have a relatively mild winter, but to see results continue to improve after the low exceedance numbers in 2021 is a really positive sign,” Ms Wilson said.
“We are starting to see the changes people have been making, have an ongoing positive impact – burning dry wood, upgrading to cleaner heating sources and being more aware of how they operate their burners.’’
She said the region was definitely on the right track but ‘‘we can’t afford to get complacent”.