The American Lung Association says about half of all Utahns are forced at times to breathe dangerously unhealthy air.

The association's latest "State of the Air" report ranks three Utah cities in the top-10 nationwide for spikes of fine-particle pollution: Salt Lake City at No. 5, Provo at No. 6 and Logan at No. 9.

In addition, the counties where those cities are located — Salt Lake, Utah and Cache counties — were in the nation's top 11 most polluted when it comes to episodes of "PM 2.5," the microscopic soot that builds up in northern Utah basins during infamous wintertime inversions.

"Dangerous levels of smog and particle pollution continue to threaten our community," said Don Hooper, interim director of the American Lung Association in Utah. "When we look at results across the country, we see that the Clean Air Act works, and we need to keep it strong."

The latest assessment, based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data from 2007 to 2009, points out that Utah cities have made improvements on ozone pollution. No Utah communities made it onto the 25-worst for that pollutant, generally considered a summertime problem.

In the affected areas plagued by PM 2.5 spikes, more than one in 10 residents have asthma, chronic bronchitis or emphysema, according to the lung association report. And about two in 10 in each city and county suffer from cardiovascular disease, which is also aggravated by air pollution.

Erin Mendenhall of the advocacy group, Breathe Utah, pointed out the latest report is science-based and the best tool available for comparing air quality in communities nationwide. She said it is important for Utahns to heed the findings, given the proven health impacts of pollution on virtually everyone.

"This is not an environmentalist's concern," she said. "It should be everyone's concern. It affects babies and old people, and everyone in between. We're all breathing. We're all affected."

The Lung Association pointed to a recent survey showing that Americans support the Clean Air Act and the improvements federal environmental regulation has made in air quality over the past four decades.

"The American Lung Association in Utah is committed to fighting for healthier air," said Hooper, of the Utah ALA office. "Cleaning up pollution creates healthier air. Now is not the time to stop progress."

In an apparent glitch, the lung association report cites Uintah County as one of the nation's cleanest when it comes to ozone. The report contradicts recent, unofficial data that show the basin has ozone problems in the winter rivaling the worst in the nation, in terms of the levels of pollution and duration.

The explanation: The EPA published no official data for the area because the Clean Air Act does not require pollution to be monitored in counties with fewer than 50,000 residents.

State of the Air project director Janice Nolen said the lung association is aware of the wintertime ozone anomalies in parts of Utah and Wyoming and in the future intends to incorporate that data in its annual reports. —

Read the Stateof the Air report

O The report is available at stateoftheair.org/