Eden DM’s Air Quality Unit shares best practice during fact finding mission

Mr Kamaseelan Chetty, Senior Manager: Air Quality Information at the South African Weather Services, approached the Eden District Municipality (Eden DM) for a fact finding mission to the Eden DM Air Quality unit on 23 and 24 November 2016.

The SA Weather Service has current service agreements with certain Provincial and Local authorities, to assist them with capacity building of their respective Air Quality units. The purpose of the visit was to explore and learn best practices in respect of air quality, from the Eden DM Air Quality unit.

The team consisted of officials from the City of Tshwane, the SA Weather Services, Gert Sibande District Municipality, Nkangale District Municipality and the Mpumalanga Department of Environmental Affairs.

On day one of the visit, Eden provided an introduction and background in terms of air quality management in the Eden district (how it all started, initial and current structure and lessons in establishing the function at district level). Aspects such as the Eden DM air quality management planning and Air Quality Management Plans, the Air Quality Bylaw, atmospheric emission licensing, enforcement and the Eden Air Quality Working Group, Air quality monitoring (ambient, in-stack) & vehicle emission testing, were covered.

The team then joined the Eden Air Quality Working Group on day 2 of the visit.

The SA Weather Services thanked Eden DM for the valuable lessons learned over the two day mission, where after the Eden DM team provided the visiting delegation with the necessary information, templates and systems to use as best practice for their respective air quality working environments.

“The Air Quality unit feels honored that they were approach out of all the Air quality units in SA for this fact finding mission,” concluded the Eden DM Air Quality Manager, Dr Johann Schoeman.