Gary Donovan notices a change for the better in his breathing whenever he leaves Rotorua.
The 70-year-old Rotorua man suffers from emphysema, a chronic lung disease usually caused by smoking which damages the air sacs in the lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Mr Donovan, who was a smoker until he was diagnosed with emphysema 13 years ago, is often on oxygen 24-hours-a-day.
He has several different inhalers and an assortment of pills to ease his breathing.
His ability to breathe depends on the humidity and temperature and he's noticed when he is out of Rotorua his breathing is a lot easier.
It's likely Mr Donovan is feeling the effects of Rotorua's deteriorating air quality.
While people can neither see nor smell it, Rotorua's air is getting dirtier and will start to make people sick if it continues to deteriorate.
People with respiratory illnesses like Mr Donovan would be the first to notice and be affected.
It has become so bad that the regional council, Environment Bay of Plenty, is now required to advertise the results of its regular monitoring.
Recent tests found air pollution in Rotorua was well above the allowable level.
At those levels people's health would not be affected straight away but Environment Bay of Plenty warns if it continues getting worse and people don't start doing their bit to clean up the air, their health could be affected in the long-term and eventually it could kill people.
An action plan aimed at cleaning up the city's air before it's too late is another year away but nothing can be done until the conclusion of scientific research looking at the causes.
In the meantime, Environment Bay of Plenty wants people with fires to do their bit to try to alleviate the problem.
In 2005, Rotorua's urban area was declared the only Local Air Management Area in the Bay of Plenty after failing to meet air quality standards for particulate matter, which is generally caused by poor combustion in vehicles and wood-burning fires.
High levels can have serious health effects including sparking respiratory problems.
Monitoring equipment is set up in various locations in the city and following two breaches of the air quality standards, Environment Bay of Plenty must now report the results to the public every month.
The readings recorded so far were unlikely to effect a person's health straight away but group manager of regulation and resource management Paul Dell said it would have a long term effect
"Over a long period of time if you're exposed to it, it will probably have an impact.
"[With] poor air quality you can have people who will die earlier than they necessarily should," Mr Dell said.
People with respiratory conditions like asthma would be more susceptible.
Mr Dell said while it would take decades before Rotorua's air pollution would affect someone's health, improvements now would mean a healthier community in the future. Environment Bay of Plenty's scientific officer Shane Iremonger said the main sources of the city's air pollution were domestic heating including wood burners and open fires, as well as vehicle emissions.
It's also believed that because the city sits in a caldera (volcanic crater), the air can't blow away as easily as it does in coastal areas. The colder air may also aggravate the problem.
The regional council has been charged with making sure the city sees an improvement within eight years.
Mr Iremonger said scientific investigations into the source of the pollution now underway would provide a better understanding of what was needed to combat the problem.
In early 2007 Environment Bay of Plenty, the Rotorua District Council and other organisations would set up an action plan to improve air quality.
He did not yet know if the plan would include banning wood-burning fires although it was an option, Mr Iremonger said.
The public could already help by dampening fires down rather than letting them smoulder overnight and by burning dry rather than wet wood.
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