Lingering air quality concerns - with levels in the mid 200s -continue to impact Iowa City
Iowa City remains under an air quality advisory, impacting the city’s parks and recreation activities throughout Wednesday and Thursday.
The current air quality index in Iowa City is 147 as of 2 p.m. Thursday, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow.gov. This is down significantly from highs in the mid-200s on Thursday morning.
The current index measure falls just below the agency’s 150 PM 2.5 threshold. Once air quality reaches 150, it is considered unhealthy for all groups.
Due to the poor air quality, Iowa City has decided to cancel several Thursday parks and recreation events or moved them inside. These include:
Party in the Park
Hydrant Party
The Playgrounds Program
The city will attempt to reschedule the events and plans to provide further details in the coming days.
Morning and afternoon swim lessons for the day will occur indoors at the Robert A. Lee recreation center at the regularly scheduled times rather than outdoors at City Park Pool.
City Park Pool was closed yesterday and remained closed all Thursday. Robert A. Lee recreation center opened for additional open swim from 1-4:15 p.m. The Mercer Park Aquatic Center is also operating normally from 6:15 a.m. to 8 p.m.
A brief rain shower across the area late Thursday morning helped increase visibility across the area and lowered the air quality index from its peak.
More: Iowa hit with 'unprecedented' air quality as haze from Canadian wildfires blankets state
Sensitive groups, such as persons with heart or lung disease and older adults, teens, and children, are urged to avoid outdoor physical activity. Those who are not part of those sensitive groups can resume outdoor activities, according to recommendations by AirNow.gov, unless air quality were to deteriorate again.
What is causing the poor air quality?
Fires in northern Quebec and low pressure over the eastern Great Lakes sent smoke through the Great Lakes region and in parts of the central and eastern United States, said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported Monday that 29,393 square miles of land including forests have burned across Canada since Jan. 1. That exceeds the previous record set in 1989 of 29,187 square miles, according to the National Forestry Database.
Nationally, 490 fires are burning, with 255 of them considered to be out of control.
AirNow.gov showed parts of Illinois, lower Michigan and southern Wisconsin with the worst air quality in the U.S. on Tuesday afternoon, and Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee had air quality categorized as “very unhealthy."
The smoke is the result of wildfires caused by climate change, because the warmer, dryer climate that exists today helps ripen conditions for fires to occur, Peter Thorne, professor in the University of Iowa College of Public Health’s Department of Occupational & Environmental Health, told the Press-Citizen Wednesday.
“This is just what the models have been forecasting for years and years,” Thorne said. “So it's no surprise to those of us who study climate change and health to see these events occurring.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@press-citizen.com or on Twitter @ryanhansen01.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Smoky air prompts cancellation of Iowa City Parks & Rec activities
