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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Environmental groups are urging the federal government to require Utah to complete a plan by the summer of 2017 for how it will clean up dirty winter air, instead of a proposed deadline of the end of 2018.
The Environmental Protection Agency is set to downgrade northern Utah's air quality designation next month after three years of dirty winter air, a move that would lead to stricter regulations.
A group of environmental organizations sent a letter this week to the EPA laying out the reasons why they believe Utah state officials should be required to turn in the cleanup plan sooner.
"The proposal would prolong the poor air quality that harms the health of Utahns, particularly children and the elderly," says the letter submitted by the Sierra Club, Western Resource Advocates and Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. "We are entitled to clean air as soon as possible and not later."
The two different timelines have their pros and cons, and state officials haven't decided yet which they prefer, said Bryce Bird, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality. Bird said he and officials plan to make a decision by Wednesday when the public comment period closes on the proposal.
Bird points out that no matter when the plan is due, the deadline to be compliant with federal clean air mandates will not change. That's December 2019.
The Salt Lake City metro area is in the midst of another winter inversion, a phenomenon caused by weather and geography. Cold, stagnant air settles in the bowl-shaped mountain basins, trapping tailpipe and other emissions that have no way of escaping to create a brown, murky haze the engulfs the metro area.
Doctors warn that breathing the polluted air can cause lung problems and other health concerns.
From 2012-2014, Salt Lake City averaged 43 micrograms of soot per cubic meter, exceeding the federal clean-air limit of 35, said Bo Call, manager of the Air Quality division of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Because of those unsafe pollutions levels, Utah is in line to get downgraded next year to a more serious air quality designation by the EPA. That will mean the state will need to come up with even stricter regulations.
The state has actively been working on the problem for years. State officials ban wood burning on many days, and they constantly plead with residents to carpool and take other measures to cut down on pollution. The state passed 22 new rules last year to reduce polluting emissions, including a ban on the sale of aerosol deodorants and hair sprays that contain hydrocarbon propellants.
He noted that about $500 million in upgrades are in the works at five oil refineries in the Salt Lake City area that are expected to reduce emissions. Construction for those projects is ongoing and supposed to be done by 2018, Bird said.
The state would have loved to avoid the downgrade by the EPA, but aren't surprised, Bird said. State officials expected it would take until 2019 to come into compliance with the federal air quality standards, Bird said.
"It takes time for those emission reductions to come into place," Bird said. "It's a long process but we're moving in the right directions and seeing improvements."
The EPA will take into account the letter from the environmental groups along with all correspondence that comes by the Wednesday deadline, agency spokesman Richard Mylott said.
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