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Press
Releases - 1998
New
year start for new air quality station
The Environmental
Protection Department announced today (Thursday) that an additional
general air quality monitoring station will start operation
at the Sai Wan Ho Fire Station in the Eastern District tomorrow
(Friday), the New Year Day of 1999.
At the
same time, the Kwai Chung general air quality monitoring station
will start reporting air quality from its new location at
the Kwai Chung Police Station.
"Both
stations are sited with a purpose to measure the typical quality
of the air in the more densely populated urban residential
areas," the Principal Environmental Protection Officer,
Mr Leung Pak-ming said.
"With
this new addition, the air monitoring network now consists
of 10 general stations to measure the air that the general
public breathe at their homes and offices, and three roadside
stations to measure the polluted roadside pollution levels
to which pedestrians are exposed," Mr Leung said.
Using
the measurement results, EPD calculates and announces the
daily Air Pollution Index (API) for each of these stations.
The API
scale ranks air pollution levels from 0 to 500. It is divided
into five bands - low, medium, high, very high, and severe.
In normal
days, the measured APIs range from the medium band (from 26
to 50) to the high band (from 51 to 100).
On bad
days, APIs would reach the very high band (from 101 to 200).
This happens more often with the roadside stations.
End/Thursday,
December 31, 1998
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