Canadian wildfires

A loaded coal barge floats down the Kanawha river beside the gold dome of the West Virginia state Capitol building. Smoke in the background blurs the mountains.

Air quality can have negative health effects for West Virginians 

BY: - July 24, 2023

At times this summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires has led to poor air quality for millions of people, including those in West Virginia.  As long as the fires continue to burn, there’s a potential for them to cause air quality problems in the state, but a lot depends on the wind, said Gabe Wawrin, a […]

Workers lack protections when wildfire smoke makes the air dangerous

BY: - July 18, 2023

Millions of American workers have breathed in dangerous levels of air pollution this year as smoke from Canada’s record wildfire season blankets cities across the Northeast. Now experts are calling on federal regulators to adopt standards protecting outdoor workers from worsening air quality, potentially modeled after the few states that have such standards, including California […]

COMMENTARY
A loaded coal barge floats down the Kanawha river beside the gold dome of the West Virginia state Capitol building. Smoke in the background blurs the mountains.

Canadian wildfire smoke should be wakeup call for West Virginia officials

BY: - July 11, 2023

June ended it as it began, with the skies in the northeast United States blanketed by smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada. In West Virginia, we were fortunate enough to avoid the worst effects for most of the month, but by the last week of June, we couldn’t escape the smoke and its impact […]