Cleaning up Cache Valley’s air
A crowd of citizens wearing surgical masks and bearing protest signs converged on a Cache County Council public hearing in February in support of a bill sponsored by state Rep. Ed Redd of Logan. The bill, set to implement vehicle emissions testing in the valley, has been in the public eye because of this season’s frequent red air problems. But Jean Lown, a USU professor, doesn’t feel the bill’s advocates represent those in the community who can make a difference.
“Unfortunately, that’s not a representative sample of the people who vote here in Cache Valley,” Lown said. “People in that room were the people that care, are educated and are knowledgeable. Unfortunately, they’re not the vast majority of voters.”
Lown doesn’t drive: She walks or rides a bicycle to USU. She often sees automobiles pouring out dirty exhaust and visible emissions into the air nearly every day. She’s fed up with county officials who say emissions testing won’t solve the problem.
“Let’s at least start attacking the problem,” Lown said. “Even if it’s only going to improve our air quality five percent, let’s do it. You’ve got to start somewhere.”
Lown said like many Utahns, she didn’t realize vehicle emissions consist of multiple components.
Randy Martin, research associate professor for the College of Engineering at USU, said four compounds are checked for in an emissions test: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds – VOCs – and oxides of nitrogen, or NOx.
VOCs and NOx, the compounds of primary concern, rise into the air and react with the atmosphere after being emitted.
VOCs primarily contribute to ozone photochemistry, Martin said, and react with nitric oxide emitted from vehicles, forming nitrogen dioxide. Afterward, nitric acid forms and combines with ammonia in the valley atmosphere to form PM2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers that can aggravate heart diseases such as coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure when it passes through the nose, throat and lungs into the cardiovascular system.
Attacking the high levels of ammonia in the valley air would be impractical, Martin said. At least 50 percent of ammonia would have to be removed before any change in PM2.5 measurements would be evident.
VOCs and NOx are approximately equal in their importance in atmospheric chemistry, Martin said.
“Sometimes if you pick the wrong one of those – say you reduce NOx but you don’t reduce the VOCs – it could actually increase our PM2.5,” Martin said.
Utah’s Division of Air Quality has set a goal to get Cache Valley below the federal standard for PM2.5 – 35 micrograms per cubic meter.
Other than area producers, the main source of valley emissions is automobiles, Martin said. The UDAQ’s models show the county’s proposed vehicle emissions inspection program is estimated to reduce total vehicle emissions in Cache Valley by .46 tons per day, roughly one-third of the total reduction required to get below the federal standard.
“Two-thirds of these emissions come from area sources – basically businesses – so we as individual consumers are going to be directly responsible for that one-third,” Martin said.
Niles Urry, producer and director of the EnviroNews documentary “Breathless in Zion,” said the pollution produced by industry can only be dealt with if the public educates itself, organizes and calls for change.
“These companies have to be held to a higher standard,” Urry said. “The solution isn’t to shut down every source polluter, but we need to make them accountable so they clean up their act in a big way.”
In the valley’s emissions program, vehicles less than six years old will be exempt from testing. All other programs implemented throughout Utah exempt vehicles with a lifetime less than four years.
“This was, in my opinion, a little bit of the county’s battling to say, ‘We stood up against the big, bad federal government and we got you six years instead of four,'” Martin said.
Many in the community see the plan as being too minimal and lenient.
“This is self-fulfilling prophecy,” Lown said. “In three or five years Lynn Lemon can say, ‘Oh, I told you so. It really hasn’t made any difference,’ but it’ll be because they made it so lax.”
With spring approaching, Cache Valley’s winter air quality problem will soon clear for another year. If future change is to be made, Martin said, it’s vital the problem stays fresh in people’s minds.
“A lot of times you’ll hear people say that an inspection maintenance program is really going to only get us a three-to-five percent reduction in PM2.5,” Martin said. “They think it’s insignificant, but when we only need to get a 10 percent reduction in PM2.5, that three-to-five percent suddenly becomes very significant.”
Martin said knowledge is key in dealing with this problem. He said the public needs to educate itself and get the facts.
“These short exposures we have for two months of the year still affect your life,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that it’s only during the winter.”
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