POLLUTION - The Salt Lake Tribune

Embrace clean air standards

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:29:41 MDT

Embrace clean air standards

By jeff miller

Updated May 18, 2013 10:29AM MDT

As a local Subaru dealer who works with one of the greenest brands in the nation, our air quality has become a major concern. The good news, however, is that new federal standards that could help dramatically improve our community’s air are being supported by a surprising alliance of car manufacturers and public health groups. Last winter, Wasatch Front residents struggled through 22 days of dangerously polluted air. Polluted air worsens breathing problems, shortens lives and especially jeopard...

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Suit: Make EPA force Utah to cut winter pollution

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:09:01 MDT

Suit: Make EPA force Utah to cut winter pollution

By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 16, 2013 11:09PM MDT

WildEarth Guardians filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. District Court in Denver on Wednesday, saying the agency failed to uphold the Clean Air Act and to protect Utahns’ health by not making the state clean up fine-particle pollution. Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program director, said state regulators are putting the public health behind the interests of polluters. “Clean air delayed is clean air denied,” Nichols said in a news release....

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Dirty skies

Tue, 14 May 2013 18:10:01 MDT

Dirty skies

Updated May 14, 2013 06:10PM MDT

Utah: 85,000 square miles of high desert, with 80 percent of its population crowded along the Wasatch Front. One would expect that, outside of the populous I-15 corridor, a land such as that would have miles upon miles of pure, healthy air. One would be wrong. In trying to establish a baseline for the amount of air pollutants present in our skies — searching in particular for the lung-scourging mixture known as ozone — the Utah Division of Air Quality has stumbled across the startling and very ...

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Smog isn't just an urban problem in Utah

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:08:29 MDT

Smog isn't just an urban problem in Utah

By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 11, 2013 12:08PM MDT

Rural Utah sometimes suffers stunningly high summer smog. For instance, the mountain community of Parleys Summit at the edge of the Wasatch Back had more high-ozone days last summer than Salt Lake City, the Utah Division of Air Quality found. So did no-traffic Badger Island and even low-traffic Antelope Island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Plus, the smog was bad enough — in the redrock deserts, the range and the mountains — that, had those spots been part of an official pollution count,...

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Transit for less

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:01:03 MDT

Transit for less

By XXXXXX The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 9, 2013 01:01AM MDT

In “Mayors tell UTA to focus on quick, simple commuter solutions” (Tribune, May 1), it appeared that the Wasatch Front’s mayors totally missed the point that convenient, low-cost public transit is going to be a key element in future growth by cutting down both congestion and pollution. Low-cost public transit will probably be just as important as safety and adequate water in attracting and supporting new businesses. No public transit system anywhere pays for itself with user revenues, but when ...

Our lost civilization

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:05:02 MDT

Our lost civilization

Updated May 7, 2013 05:05PM MDT

If, 10,000 years from now, visiting archeologists wonder just what it was that caused the residents of the soaring culture of the Wasatch Front to suddenly abandon their homes just when the community seemed to be thriving, a simple look around won’t do much to explain the riddle. But if they excavate the archives of the Utah Division of Air Quality, those future explorers of the past will find that the technological success of our region was so incompatible with the natural lay of the land that...