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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- New air-pollution rules, intended to help prevent 17,000 deaths nationwide each year, have set air quality goals that northern Utah counties will have difficulty meeting.
Based on current pollution trends, 10 northern Utah counties would fail new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits for the pollutant known as PM 2.5, said Rick Sprott, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality.
It's likely to take some work to meet the new standard, said Sprott. "But it is something that is important to be done for public health."
PM 2.5 particles are created primarily by combustion engines, like those that power automobiles and industrial plants. It is blamed by researchers for lung and heart ailments and death after it lodges itself in lungs.
Sprott said vehicles using cleaner emission technologies and expanded mass transit will help counties meet the new standards, which will be enforced by the EPA about three years from now.
Current standards allow communities a certain number of days when air exceeds 65 micrograms of the fine particles per cubic meter before the EPA requires added pollution cuts. The new standard would reduce the daily trigger to 35 micrograms of PM 2.5 per cubic meter of air.
Every Utah county meets the current standard. But, based on air-pollution data collected by the state over the past three years, 10 counties -- Cache, Box Elder, Weber, Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake, Summit, Tooele, Utah and Juab -- would exceed the 35-microgram limit.
But some environmentalists are saying the new regulations aren't strong enough.
"This decision goes against the combined recommendations of over 2,000 peer-reviewed studies, medical and health groups and the EPA's own independent science advisers. It was clearly based on political science, not medical science," said Alice McKeown, air analyst for the Sierra Club.
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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
