You also probably know that Utah has a serious problem with mercury contamination of its streams and lakes and that the state has issued advisories (read warnings) about feasting on certain duck species that populate Great Salt Lake marshlands and on fish taken from a growing number of waterways.

Hazardous and radioactive wastes, many of them imported from places happy to be rid of them, are stacking up as the companies that store them buy political power to expand their inventories and ease regulatory restrictions, thus further undermining Utah's image as a safe place to live and raise a family.

Concerned? You should be, especially when members of a legislative subcommittee are singling out the state agency responsible for addressing these and other long-term threats to Utah's air, water and land for a possible 5 percent budget cut. At a time when the state treasury is bursting and other state agencies will keep even or expand, only the Utah Department of Environmental Quality risks having to do more with less.

First, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. proposed a 3.2 percent reduction in DEQ funding for fiscal 2008, even though the agency's budget, since 2002, has eroded by 6.2 percent. Then, last week, the Transportation, Environmental Quality, and National Guard Appropriations Subcommittee (a nonsensical grouping) ordered DEQ Director Dianne Nielson to come up with a list of possible budget cuts to all six of its divisions totaling $550,000, or 5 percent of its base budget.

Nielson pointed out that a financial hit of that magnitude would leave the state incapable of meeting the requirements of federal environmental programs, thus inviting the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal regulators to take over, at great cost to the state, implementing those requirements.

Nielson already has said the Wasatch Front will find it tough to meet the new EPA standard for fine-particulate pollution, which is 50 percent more stringent than the current standard that urban Utah is near to violating.

The health and safety of Utah's growing populace should be paramount as the Legislature contemplates how to divvy up state revenues. Shorting, rather than expanding, the funding of the government watchdog over the state's environmental well-being is not only bad public policy, but shows a callous disregard for this and future generations.