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Utah’s sickening smog dissipates, for now – KFOX El Paso
1. Utah’s sickening smog dissipates, for now – KFOX El Paso
The air pollution that smothered mountain valleys in northern Utah for more than a week made a
dramatic improvement Sunday.
Regulators called for at least two days of clean air and lifted a ban on wood-burning starting
Monday for the urban corridor anchored by Salt Lake City. The relief came courtesy of a storm
that brought heavy snow to northern Utah.
Winds finally loosened an icy fog that was trapping tailpipe and other emissions in mountain
valleys.
Doctors had declared a health emergency, but Gov. Gary Herbert refused to follow suit with a
decree of his own. The doctors called for lower highway speed limits, curbs on industrial activity
and free mass transit.
Soot along the greater Salt Lake region topped out at up to 130 micrograms per cubic meter last
week. That was more than three times the clean-air limit set by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. But on Sunday, the count of extremely fine particulates was down to 10
micrograms per cubic meter in Salt Lake and Davis counties.
Later Sunday, regulators issued an all-clear for the greater Salt Lake region as the winter storm
scoured out mountain valleys. Only two counties in eastern Utah — Duchesne and Uintah —
remained under an advisory for people sensitive to air pollution.
Weather conditions could set the stage this week for a return of bad air. Regulators blame
temperature inversions, when winds calm and cold temperatures sink into valleys, trapping
pollutants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had singled out the greater Salt Lake region for
much of January as having the nation’s worst air.
More than 100 Utah doctors signed a petition Wednesday calling for immediate relief. They also
criticized expansion plans by Salt Lake-area oil refineries that they said were almost certain to
be approved by the Utah Division of Air Quality, the same agency that puts out pollution alerts.
The refineries say they are cutting some emissions even as they expand, but doctors say other
emissions will rise and that nobody measures errant emissions from thousands of valves at a
refinery that can wear out and leak over time.
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