Environews, Environews

Environews: Utah air quality problem, “serious nonattainment”

By Amy Brunvand

– by Amy Brunvand

Last New Year’s Eve, air quality status for Salt Lake City, Provo and Logan was downgraded from “Nonattainment” to “Serious Nonattainment” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after failing to meet Clean Air Act standards for six years running. This is the first and, so far, the only part of the US to be reclassified as “serious.”

EPA plans to give the State of Utah 18 months to come up with a new clean air plan. Environmental groups say the plan should be completed no later than June of 2017 so that the public can participate in the planning effort and the state has time to attain standards in 2019.

Utah Physicians for A Healthy Environment: uphe.org. Utah Chapter Sierra Club: utah.sierraclub.org. Western Resource Advocates: westernresourceadvocates.org

More January 2016 Environews:

Another wolf killed in Utah

$14 million for misguided effort to privatize public lands

Utah national park visitation soars

Utah gets utility-scale solar

Lake Powell pipeline a costly water boondoggle

This article was originally published on January 11, 2016.