Area has short time to fix air problem
The air quality of Cache County has become a major problem with the levels of a specific pollutant exceeding the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency for two consecutive winters.
Mayor Doug Thompson said Cache County has had the highest concentration in Utah of the particulate matter known as PM 2.5. The pollutant is one-fourth the size of a human hair, making it small enough to stay in suspension in the air.
“This particular pollutant is as bad as living in a house with a smoker,” Thomas said of PM 2.5 in a recent study held at BYU.
The pollutant is “dangerous for humans and any air-breathing animal,” he said because the natural defenses of the cilia in the lungs cannot remove the pollutant particles.
According to the EPA standards set by the Supreme Court last month, the amount of PM 2.5 is not to exceed 65 micrograms per cubic meter. Cache County has exceeded that level with 88 mg/cu.m two winters ago and 137.5 mg/cu.m this past winter, said Grant Koford, an environmental health scientist from the Bear River Health Department.
“That’s more than double the standard,” Koford said.
If Cache County exceeds the standard for a third consecutive year, the county will be in violation with the EPA and will be given some “dramatic” mandatory federal measures to reduce the pollution levels, Thompson said.
“We no longer have time,” Thomas said. “This is a ‘do or don’t do’ winter. We can’t just try, it’s do or don’t do.”
According to a press release, the Bear River Board of Health unanimously voted April 2 to “ask the state Division of Air Quality for a list of possible voluntary measures that might reduce pollution in Cache County’s air to avoid a third violation of pollution standards.”
Koford said the Bear River Health Department will receive the precise data from this past winter’s filter analysis in order for an effective plan to be formulated by Nov. 1 so an impact on the upcoming winter can be made.
In order to alleviate the air-quality problem which has arisen, Koford said the main obstacle will be educating the citizens on the situation so they can change their lifestyles and make it a priority.
“The public aren’t generally concerned enough and we need to change that,” Koford said.
As for the causes of the poor air quality, Thomas said the matter is “baffling the scientists,” but two possible theories have emerged from studies.
The first cause is thought to be from the “intense” inversions that are experienced in the winters of Logan. In the past two years, Logan has had snowfall when the rest of Utah has not, which in turn led to more snow cover and the reflection of sunlight, exacerbating the inversions, Thomas said.
A second cause of the increased pollution could be the geography of Logan, Thomas said. Cache Valley sits geographically in a small bowl 30 miles long and 12 miles wide, surrounded on all four sides by mountains that are trapping the pollutant particles.
Thomas said the primary culprit to the rising pollution concentration is the combustion engine, and scientists are currently forming solutions to aid the alarming problem.
“We’ve got a big job ahead of us,” Thompson said. “It’s going to require a lot of teamwork. It’s urgent.”