(KCPW News) The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is the seventh worst in the country for short-term particle pollution, according to a new American Lung Association report card, called “State of the Air.” That’s a slight improvement from last year, when it ranked fifth. Glenn Lanham, Executive Director for the American Lung Association of Utah, says he thinks Utahns are trying to make changes, like recognizing the importance of carpooling, walking and riding bikes.
“You’ve also got some improved engines in terms of vehicles that are operating on the roads today,” Lanham says. “SUV vehicles, as an example, I think they’ve made some progress there. So it’s a combination of efforts from the corporate community, efforts from the public sector and efforts from the private sector.”
Lanham says those improvements will continue if air quality standards put in place by the Environmental Protection Agency are stringently enforced.
“There are still some in Congress that have recently tried to block the strengthening of the Clean Air Act standards, so we’re simply doing all we can as an association to oppose any efforts to roll back anything related to a diminished adherence to the standards of the Clean Air Act,” he says.
For ozone pollution, the only county in Utah earning an A on the report card is Cache County, while Salt Lake, Davis and Uintah each got an F.
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