Establishing a visibility goal for wilderness and urban areas in British Columbia and Canada

In February 2005, Premier Gordon Campbell declared in the Speech from the Throne that one of the five Great Goals for a Golden Decade in B. C. was “To lead the world in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management, bar none.” (Speech from the Throne 2005). [...] The desired outcome of the project is a process for establishing a draft visibility goal for the Lower Fraser Valley that will ultimately be the cornerstone to a visibility protection pilot program for the valley. [...] After initiating the process, the first time through the cycle consists of analysing data to help set goals; setting visibility goals (including determining the form and metrics of the goals); developing science and social science programs to advance our understanding of visibility issues; and implementing a visibility management program. [...] For the RHR the EPA proposed presumptive ‘‘reasonable progress targets,’’ expressed in terms of deciviews, for the purposes of improving visibility on the twenty percent worst days and allowing no degradation of visibility on the twenty percent best days. [...] Through a series of meetings in 2002 and early 2003, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and the Visibility Index Oversight Committee designed the visibility survey, selected a contractor to conduct the survey, oversaw the completion of the field portion of the survey, and defined a recommended visibility index.