facebook-pixel

Tribune Editorial: Utah’s air isn’t getting better fast enough

(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) The LDS Church Office Building rises from dense fog as an inversion settles over the Salt Lake Valley on Tuesday December 26, 2017.

Utah’s recent history with air quality comes down to this: We’re headed in the right direction, but the road is getting steeper.

So it is with news that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has officially notified Utah officials that areas in seven counties are exceeding safe ozone levels and the counties will be declared non-attainment areas. That means Utah will have to come up with new ways to reduce ozone.

And if that’s not enough, Tribune reporter Emma Penrod tells us that scientists who are charged with reducing Utah’s other main air pollutant — particulates — are now saying Utah’s plans for lowering the amount of small particulates (PM2.5) likely won’t be enough to satisfy EPA.

The Wasatch Front is already considered a serious non-attainment area for particulates. If Utah can’t come up with true reductions, it could face lawsuits or federal mandates that have economic implications above and beyond the health implications.

It’s not like we haven’t made progress. Largely thanks to cleaner cars, pollution levels haven’t really climbed even as the population has grown. But the science has improved. There is now more evidence that even lower levels of pollution are still harmful.

That is why EPA tightened its ozone standards in 2015, which immediately put the Wasatch Front on a path to non-attainment.

Meanwhile, it’s a similar mixed bag for another enemy of air quality: sprawl. Also this week, the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute released a report that tracks population by census tract since 2010. The report shows several areas with new, higher density development that is more efficient for both housing and transportation. But it also indicates that the dream of single-family homes is still strong, particularly in the Point of the Mountain area.

Before we turn into Los Angeles, we’re probably going to have to act more like … Los Angeles. That is, we’ll need to step up our game by requiring more alternative vehicles and tightening construction standards to squeeze more efficiency out of each burned hydrocarbon. We should also encourage smaller homes on smaller lots, reducing drive times and distances.

Utah politicians have chafed at such interventions, but it’s getting harder to ignore them. When it comes to air quality, the bad is still outrunning the good.