"I find this premature," said Councilman H. Craig Petersen, who suggested it was inappropriate for the County Attorney's Office to make the "unilateral" decision to call for such a fee increase. "This kind of comes out of the clear blue. I've been a member of the Cache Valley Air Quality Task Force since it was formed . . . and we haven't even met for two months."

Fellow Councilman Cory Yeates said he, too, was "blindsided" by the proposal.

Attorney Don Linton - on behalf of Cache County Attorney George Daines, an air quality task force member - presented a draft copy of the proposal Tuesday, and the council agreed to hold a public hearing April 25 to discuss air quality.

Pollution has been a growing concern in Cache Valley in recent years.

Grant Koford, an environmental health scientist at the Bear River Health Department in Logan, notes the county has been flirting with noncompliance with federal clean-air standards, especially during wintertime inversions.

Koford, who backs the proposed increase, said his agency needs more money to study and curb the pollution problem.

"In the past couple of years, we've concentrated our efforts on air quality and put our arms around that. It is a public health issue," he said. "But some of the other programs [swimming pool and food services, for example] have suffered."

The proposed vehicle-registration increase could provide some of that money. Currently, 75,000 to 80,000 automobiles are registered or renewed each year in Cache County, Koford said.

Sue Taylor, an agent in the Cache County Department of Motor Vehicles branch, said renewal fees currently range from $35 to $175.

"More research needs to be done and, if that's going to cost more, we can look at the options," Yeates said in an interview. "But I want to see some concrete facts as to why we need to raise taxes or implement fees."

He added that Cache Valley's air-quality woes may be beyond any dollar fix.

"Ours is not a pollution problem, necessarily, but a weather problem," Yeates said, referring to inversions that result from the bowl-shaped landscape of Cache Valley. "How do you solve that?"

abrunson@sltrib.com