Has
Cache Valley air flunked the EPA test? We'll know in
a few days, Logan mayor says
By Lindsay Kite
March 12, 2005 | LOGAN -- "Too close
to call" is how Mayor Doug Thompson described the city's
unofficial air quality test results Friday.
The official report, which he said should be in by
Monday or Tuesday, will be the deciding factor in whether
or not the city meets the Environmental Protection Agency's
air quality standard. If the test finds the particulate
matter (PM) to be at 2.5 microns or smaller, the city
reaches attainment.
If it is measured to be above that, the city will
be deemed "non-attainment" and be forced to make major
changes to improve these results.
"We're going to hit non-attainment eventually, but
it is a bureaucratic catch-22," he said. "We need money
to help the pollution problem, but they won't give you
the money until you need it bad enough."
Cities in non-attainment are normally forced to institute
mandatory emissions testing, but Thompson said that
isn't the solution for Logan.
"First of all, it's costly. Also, it is a big-brother
government that Westerners hate," he said. "Besides
that, it doesn't do the job. The best it can do is to
reduce pollution 20 to 25 percent, but when you are
80 percent above, 25 percent just doesn't cut it."
Two weeks ago, Thompson spoke with the EPA in Washington,
D.C. to propose a plan. He said when the official found
out Logan is currently at attainment, he was speechless
and said he'd never seen a community so productive and
still at attainment.
Thompson said the city's plan is to institute voluntary
emissions testing, with the incentive of being able
to drive on red burn days only if your vehicle passes.
The problems with this are being able to predict red
burn days in advance and notifying the pubic, he said.
"The most effective way to notify is not through the
media, but with signs on both ends of Main Street,"
he said. "Seventy thousand cars travel in Cache Valley
every day and 40,000 of those take Main Street."
Thompson said they need money for a sign dedicated
to air quality that can be changed electronically, not
manually like the previous sign.
The problem of prediction is complicated by this year's
atypical pattern of pollution severity. He said the
PM 2.5 standard has existed for five years, and during
four of those years, it has been a steady climb from
green to red.
"Before it has been either good or bad, but this year
it tends to just stay at yellow," he said. "We are having
to revise our notion of predictability and we need money
for those experiments."
NW
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