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SALT LAKE CITY — A veteran state air quality employee who has been the agency's point man on investigating pollution problems in the Uintah Basin has been selected to fill a new position focusing on rural air issues in the Utah.
Brock LeBaron, an environmental scientist and program manager with the Division of Air Quality for 21 years, was selected to the post as part of a renewed effort by Utah regulators to combat an wintertime ozone problem in the state's gas and oil development hub.
Amanda Smith, executive director of the Department of Environmental Quality, created the new position to draw specific attention to air quality challenges facing rural areas like Uintah County.
“Brock brings a wealth of experience that will allow him to effectively coordinate air quality issues that impact the rural areas of the state,” Smith said. "I have great confidence in his ability to bring stakeholders together to resolve the issues.”
Brock brings a wealth of experience that will allow him to effectively coordinate air quality issues that impact the rural areas of the state. I have great confidence in his ability to bring stakeholders together to resolve the issues.
–Amanda Smith
LeBaron worked under the Western Governor's Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission as part of an effort to address regional haze, which poses an array of problems for regulators if the pollution has drifted in from a neighboring state's emissions.
The basin's ozone problems — unlike what is experienced along the Wasatch Front — occur in the winter in that region of the state, which sits in a geologic bowl of sorts.
While fine particulate pollution like PM2.5 plagues the state in the winter during inversions and higher ozone levels leads to brown summertime haze, the basin's air quality problems have been unique, and harder to understand. At times, basin ozone has been double the national air quality standards.
LeBaron told a committee of lawmakers just last month that a multipronged study looking at pollution problems in the basin is nearing completion, and another study to begin this winter will specifically examine the chemistry behind ozone formation to better get at its emission source.
A new state monitor has been placed in the central basin, and American Indian tribes have placed two devices to get measurements.
LeBaron has a graduate degree in meteorology from Utah State University. In 1990, he came to work for the air quality division as an air quality modeler. The past 15 years, he has served as the manager for the Technical Analysis Section, focusing on the development of a state implementation plan to meet federal standards for wintertime pollution.
Email:aodonoghue@ksl.com
