HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — Standing in the fresh sea breeze blowing off the Halifax waterfront, tourist Michelle Held said she’s always had the image of Nova Scotia as “pristine and picture perfect.”
“I didn’t think you’d have smog here,” the Bermuda resident said earlier this week during a stop in the harbor city on her way to visit family in Toronto.
But the message in the hazy horizons this summer was clear — smog dirty enough to be a health danger and blanket the province’s scenic views is making its home down East.
Environment Canada, which only extended its smog advisory program to Nova Scotia this summer, has recorded five periods of poor air quality in the Maritimes so far.
It issued warnings twice this week for central Nova Scotia and southern New Brunswick, accompanied by urgings from health officials for people with respiratory problems to stay indoors.
This week’s smog — though not as dense or brown as that of southern Ontario and Vancouver — was created by car exhaust fumes and industrial smoke that originally drifted in from the Great Lakes region.
