Southpointe Academy Grade 9 student Meaghan MacKenzie chose a topic that's been in the news lately to study for her school science fair project.
MacKenzie began working on her project, Uncovering the Truth about Coal Dust in South Delta, last July.
"It was something that I was interested in," she said.
MacKenzie said she'd read a lot of newspaper articles about the issue and has "family members and friends saying they believed they had coal dust."
Part of her project included collecting samples at six locations every three weeks around South Delta from September until December.
She said she found coal dust in nine of her 30 samples. That included coal dust in all five of her samples at Fred Gingell Park, in three samples at the Tsawwassen First Nation and once at her school.
Another part of her project included a survey where she talked to 124 South
Delta residents. Close to 70 per cent said they were concerned about coal dust.
MacKenzie got help on her project from Mike Brotherston, Delta's manager of climate action and environment, as well as TFN lands assistant Nikki Eely, Coun. Ian Paton, and officials from Westshore Terminals and Fraser Health.
MacKenzie, along with other students, is headed to the South Fraser Regional Science Fair at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in April. If her project does well there she could be headed to a Canada-wide fair in Ontario in May.
A coal dust monitoring program, looking at whether dust is escaping from rail cars headed to Roberts
Bank, will be undertaken this year by Delta, the Optimist reported last month. Sampling last summer found dustfall readings in Tsawwassen were within allowable limits but exceeded provincial guidelines adjacent to railway tracks.
Westshore Terminals has its own monitoring program along with a dust suppression system.
