Brian McAndrew
Toronto Star Environment Reporter
June 22, 2000

People with breathing problems arrive at Toronto hospitals choking on smog and locked in a life-and-death struggle that an emergency ward doctor compares to being strangled by a strong pair of hands.

"Put your hands around your neck. Slowly squeeze and choke. Now imagine your child being choked, short of breath, blue in the face and panicking over the possibility of death," Dr. Isser Dubinsky told a city-sponsored smog conference yesterday.

"This is exactly what we see day to day - hour to hour - on days when the air quality is poor," said Dubinsky, chief of emergency services at Toronto's Western and General hospitals.

Emergency wards treat "an epidemic number" of people suffering asthma attacks when smog levels are high, Dubinsky told about 120 environmentalists, politicians and health care officials at Metro Hall.

The conference was organized following the release of a city health department report last month that said smog causes 1,000 premature deaths in Toronto each year, and sends 5,500 more people to hospital.

Looking for action from governments on combating smog this summer, the conference heard several announcements:

• Federal Transport Minister David Collenette promised that Via Rail would plan improved rush-hour service for long-distance commuters from places like Kingston, London and Niagara Falls, and would consider restoring service from Barrie and Peterborough canceled 10 years ago.
  
  
• Federal Environment Minister David Anderson announced a $1 million investment in better air-quality forecasting programs.

• Anderson also declared that the pollutants that make up smog - sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and volatile organic compounds like solvents - will be added to the federal list of toxic chemicals.
  
  
• Provincial Environment Minister Dan Newman said the Lennox generating station near Belleville, which uses cleaner-burning natural gas, will be put into use ahead of the coal-burning Lakeview power plant in Mississauga during smog alerts.
  
  
• Newman also announced the creation of a committee of environmentalists, industry representatives and public health officials to help the province meet its goal of reducing smog levels by 45 per cent by 2010.

Anderson was expecting more from Newman in plans to reduce smog-producing air pollution from Ontario's five coal-burning power plants.

The province must immediately convert the coal-burning plants to natural gas, Anderson told reporters.

"There's going to have to be some major changes in the area of electrical generation from coal-fired plants, without question. To achieve the (2010) targets, they'll need it."

The province has placed a moratorium on the sale of coal-fired plants run by Ontario Power Generation until the environment ministry determines what requirements should be placed on new owners to reduce emissions.

Newman said several options were being considered, from conversion to natural gas to improved pollution-control equipment.

Dr. Sheela Basrur, the city's medical officer of health, said three of the coal-fired plants - Lakeview, Nanticoke on Lake Erie and Lambton near Sarnia - produce as much nitrogen oxides and 11 times as much sulphur dioxide as all the air-pollution sources in Toronto put together.

Toronto Hydro announced plans to purchase "green power" generated by non-polluting technologies such as wind and solar power, as well as methane gas captured from landfill sites, when the electricity market is deregulated in November.

The utility will purchase 130 million kilowatt hours of clean energy annually, said Joyce McLean, manager of green energy programs.