Skip to content

The Alberta Ambient Air Quality Objectives (AAAQO) are the provincial objectives for air quality. The Objectives are compared to actual air quality measurements to assess industrial compliance and report on the current Air Quality Health Index. The WBEA reports all detected exceedances of the AAAQO’s Energy & Environmental Response Line. The AAAQO’s relevant to the WBEA’s network can be found here.

Alberta Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (AAAQG) were developed by the province for airshed planning and management, and as a general performance indicator. The WBEA reports all detected exceedances of the AAAQG’s to Alberta Environment and Protected Areas’ Energy and Environmental Response Line. The AAAQG relevant to the WBEA’s network can be found here.

Fort McKay Response Triggers (FMKRT) were developed collaboratively between the community of Fort McKay, Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, the Alberta Energy Regulator, and Alberta Health. They were selected to reflect the needs of Fort McKay to have an immediate notification process in place to respond to air quality events. The trigger levels can be found here.

The status of air quality events is established according to pre-determined levels in AAAQO, AAAQG and FMKRT. The definitions of reported statuses can be found here.

A note about using the Air Quality Events search tool:

The time for both the Start Date and End Date is set to 00:00:00 daily.

When making an AQE data request, users should specify an end date which is one day past the desired date range.

For example, a request for data for January 5th, 2023, will have a start date field value of “2023-01-05” and an end date field value of “2023-01-06”.

Parameter 1-Hour Average 8-Hour Average 24-Hour Average 30-Day Average Annual Average
Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
172 ppb - 48 ppb 11 ppb 8 ppb
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
159 ppb - - - 8 ppb
Ozone (O3)
76 ppb - - - -
Total Reduced Sulphurs (TRS) / Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S)*
10 ppb - 3 ppb - -
Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5)
- -
29 μg/m3
- -
Carbon Monoxide (CO) 13 ppb 5 ppb - - -
Ammonia (NH3)
2 ppb - - - -
Total Suspended Particulate (TSP) - -
100 μg/m3
- -
*In the WBEA network TRS concentrations are reported using the H2S AAAQOs.
Parameter 1Hour Average 30-Day Average
Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5)
80 μg/m3

Parameter 1-hour Average 30-Day Average
Dustfall 53 mg 100cm -2 In residential and recreational areas
158 mg 100cm -2 In commercial and industrial areas
Parameter H2S
10 min Average 15 min Average 1-hour Average
Trigger 1 - >25 ppb** >10 ppb
Trigger 2 >50 ppb* - -
Trigger 3 >150 ppb* - -
Trigger 4 >1000 ppb* - -

Parameter SO2
10 min Average 15 min Average 1-hour Average
Trigger 1 >75 ppb* - -
Trigger 2 >150 ppb* - >172 ppb
Trigger 3 >250 ppb* - -
Trigger 4 >750 ppb* - -
* for two consecutive 5 min average intervals
** for three consecutive 5 min average intervals