Posted on 04/03/2007 5:55:39 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
They might seem an unlikely group to storm Utah's halls of power to demand action on behalf of the people.
But that's exactly what Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment promised Monday, launching a campaign to cut the air pollution that is sickening Utahns and killing as many as 1,000 of them a year. Otherwise, they say, Utah's air-pollution crisis will become an air-pollution catastrophe that claims the health and the lives of people forced to breathe the bad air.
Scott N. Hurst, an LDS Hospital anesthesiologist, likened air pollution's impacts to those of smoking cigarettes.
"You and I can choose not to smoke," he said. "But we can't choose not to breathe."
Air pollution harms the most vulnerable - children whose lung function can be forever damaged, old people and those with heart and lung disease - but all Utahns feel the impact and suffer the economic impact of higher health-care costs and impaired "livability," the doctors said. They hope outraged citizens will help, as well as Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who got a preview of the campaign last week.
They'll likely need it. Some of their ideas for tackling air pollution are sure to chafe some of Utah's most powerful political interests, especially the energy industry.
Topping the list of suggestions is blocking new coal plants - including four already proposed in the state - and pushing for the toughest possible controls on plants already in operation.
Tim Wagner, energy policy coordinator for the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club, applauded the group's goals but warned of challenges ahead.
"They're up against a couple of major industries that have deep pockets," he said. "They're up against a Legislature that hasn't been very friendly to these issues. And they're up against a strong component of public apathy."
Brian Moench, an anesthesiologist who started the group at the end of this year's high-pollution January, says that public education and, ultimately, public involvement, backed by the science, is key to pushing the issue to the top of the policymaking agenda.
"The science tells us this is making us all sick to some degree and killing some of us," he said.
Other doctors participating in the effort include: Maunsel B. Pearce, a retired cardiovascular surgeon; Shellie J. Ring, a Salt Lake pediatrician; Gerald H. Ross, a doctor of family and environmental medicine; and Richard E. Kanner a professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah.
Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said the group has been invited to work with the Air Quality Board and regulators to look at practical solutions to the problems they raised.
Cutting pollution will require experts on both health and regulation, she said. They also will require large-scale efforts - such as the use of cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels - as well as homespun ones - such as driving less.
Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay, predicted some easy fixes, such as the doctors' suggestion that school buses be barred from idling their engines so children have less exposure to harmful diesel exhaust.
She added that, while lawmakers may not embrace some of the suggestions, like the coal-plant moratorium, many of the ideas are likely to gain the public's support and, eventually, that of lawmakers. The doctors already appear to have Huntsman's attention, she said.
"Knowing him, he will not let it drop," she said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he took the lead in some fashion."
fahys@sltrib.com
* Q. Is Utah's air safe to breathe?
* A. Most of the time, Utah air is excellent, and its cities don't rank among the top 100 for year-round pollution nationwide. But spikes of fine-particle pollution during winter inversions and periods of ground-level ozone in the summer can make air quality deteriorate to levels considered unhealthy, based on health-based standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The best way to monitor air quality in Utah is by checking the three-day forecasts at www.airquality.utah.gov/.
* Q. Is local air quality getting better?
* A. By all measures, the air has gotten cleaner in the past three decades, when federal regulators set limits on the level of pollution considered safe. At the same time, more and more scientific studies show that air pollution causes serious, and often irreversible, harm to health even if someone is only exposed to episodes of it rather than a steady stream of bad air. The impacts are worst on the most vulnerable populations: the very young, the very old and people with heart and lung problems.
* Q. Then why did Salt Lake City have the most "red" air-quality days ever this winter?
* A. All the new scientific data about the dangers of pollution prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to toughen the standard for its health warnings for PM 2.5, beginning last Dec. 18. Utah had 22 days that exceeded the new standard in the winter of 2006-07. There would have been only four under the standard that was in place before Dec. 18.
* Moratorium on new coal plants.
* Mandatory state-of-the-art controls on existing plants.
* Reduction of speed limit to 55 mph when air pollution exceeds federal standards.
* Offering public subsidies for mass transit to encourage free ridership and expanded service.
* Aiming for a 20 percent cut in pollution emissions through the Utah Air Quality Board.
The AMA ?
* Offering public subsidies for Loot Rail to encourage free ridership and expanded service.
fixed...
It seems to me I changed planes in Salt Lake City once long ago. Otherwise I don’t remember being in Utah. I can’t shake the idea that the air in Utah is just fine.
I guess the good doctors could lead by example and start taking the bus to work. Wife and kids, too.
Hi, I am Jimmah Carter.
I Immediately thought either the AMA or the wankers at Science in the Public Interest were behinds this one.
What a bunch of WUSSIES. Pack them in cattle cars and ship them here to Philly. You need lungs of iron to survive here ;^)
It's another manufactured "crisis".
Drivers didn’t stand up for smokers.
They've got their hooks firmly entrenched in ending choice for part "A", now they're working on part "B".
I also suggest a 50% surcharge - not a tax - on their rather large salaries to help defray the huge increase in electric bills for the people of Utah.
For many reasons (mostly related to an almost complete lack of air flow), Logan, a small city hosting Utah State University, has the worst fine-particle pollution in the 49 states not named California on its worst week of the year. During the overwhelming majority of the year, Utah air quality borders on the pristine. But when air doesn’t move vertically for three weeks and where mountains block any horizontal flow, it gets very bad. The valley contains tens of thousands of dairy cattle and plenty of cars, emitting ammonia (through urine) and oxides of nitrogen (from heating nitrogen in an oxygen-rich environment), respectively. These two gases combine to form NH4NO3 (ammonium nitrate), a particle.
That said, coal-fired power plants should be part of the SOLUTION, provided that their operators choose locations far away from the polluted valleys. Coal-fired electric generation brings inexpensive energy (for electric heating) to the masses, enabling them to avoid burning smoky wood or coal at home to stay warm. Utah State also may benefit from a serious energy audit of its campus and buildings.
There is even some data to suggest that when the speed limit is set to the speed at least 85% of drivers are cruising at, when undisturbed by police or road conditions, that safety actually increases.
If areas of SLC have a pollution problem, it can be addressed in other ways. The problem that lovers of big and bigger government have is to fixate on a predetermined solution and then to impose predetermine fixes, most of which involve decreased liberty and increased costs.
Study after study has shown that most pollution is caused by a very few vehicles in the general fleet. Why not levy license fees according to the level of pollutants a car produces? Why not have roadside remote sensing to cite the high-polluters?
Well, most often it is because liberals just cannot bring themselves to making poor people clean up their dirty cars. (Women and minorities hardest hit, always) It is easier to just make everyone suffer with speed limits that are slower than the driver would naturally drive.
I live in the Salt Lake Valley - the air is fine except for a few weeks in the winter - when you can go up to the ski resorts a half hour away if you want to do something outdoors. This is a stupid initiative.
In fact, the air is so clear here, I can often see a mountain peak that is 100 miles away from my backyard.
I for one am for clean air, but I doubt that our local politicians, or politicians in general, could formulate a plan that encourages cleaner air. They may have good intentions but it would probably result in zero impact on pollution and a huge cost for citizens and private industry.
These guys are arrogant pr****s who think they know everything, just because the law allows them to cut into people and feed them drugs.
In fact, they don’t know squat on these subjects, and if this is their best evidence of their understanding of the scientific method, I’d never let them touch me or advise on my health.
I definitely agree. The Wasatch Front had the same inversion layer 25 years ago and, every year, the news media would cry like it was a brand new phenomenon! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And outside of the 3 bad weeks a year, the air here is clear as a bell.
It is also worth noting that the threshold for ‘Red Burn’ days was lowered (new standard). Hence, the increased number of ‘red days’ this year. Of course, the media never mentioned that whenever they went on their rants about how bad our air is getting.
Utah needs a 360 mph train. Don’t know where they would go, but they would get there right away.
But of course! This is just like the government always lowering the dollar amount of their definition of “poverty level”, then hollering that more and more people are getting poor and justifying all kinds of entitlement crap (with the accompanying tax increases, of course).
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