KSL News
By Nicole Gonzales

NORTHERN UTAH — The Division of Air Quality is calling Wednesday one of the worst air days this summer. It’s a “Red” air alert day, one of the very few declared in the Salt Lake Valley so far this season.

In fact, most people were surprised to learn it was a red air day. Unless you’re above the gunk in the air, from the valley floor it’s difficult to see.

From above the capitol, you can see an opaque white blanket that covers the valley. But from Liberty Park in downtown Salt Lake City, it looked like a beautiful day.

“I can’t say that I’ve really noticed a difference in the air quality. I think it’s been really nice,” said David Jolley, who enjoyed the sunshine Wednesday afternoon.

“If I had known that I probably would have done something indoors today,” said Lisa Mountain, who was in the park with her son Liam. “It looks like a beautiful day and you’d think it’d be fine.”

The Division of Air Quality says it’s one of the worst air quality days of the summer.

“It’s been really nice and we kind of expected it to carry on, but we’re getting a late blast of high ozone,” said Bo Call with the Division of Air Quality. “It could very well be impacted by the fires up in Idaho coming down.”

The Long Butte Fire in southern Idaho has burned about 500 square miles. That smoke may be affecting our air.

“Forest fires do contribute to the base components of ozone, pollution and NOx, so they can have an effect,” Call said.

Right now there’s a lot of ozone in the air in the Salt Lake Valley, which is when sunlight interacts with pollution in the atmosphere. A red alert day means the pollution is at least 75 parts per billion.

Most counties along the Wasatch Front were impacted Wednesday. As usual, on red air days people are supposed to limit driving and cut down on outdoor activities.

Most residents, though, had no clue.

“That’s what’s kind of scary,” Mountain said. “You think everything is fine and then you realize that it’s actually a problem.”

Thursday, the temperature is supposed to rise to about 98 degrees, so the same conditions may be in effect then.

E-mail: ngonzales@ksl.com

EPA prepares move against those who pollute at our expense
Earthjustice, August 18th, 2010
By Trip Van Noppen

Too often in the last two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has gnawed big polluters like a toothless tiger. But 20 years after Congress endowed the agency with new tools to protect people from dangerous air pollution, the EPA is finally preparing to bite down hard.

The EPA is expected to finalize over the next few years a series of pollution control rules that could cut global warming pollution, improve air quality and protect the health of millions of Americans. But only if the agency gets it right—and big polluters will be fighting to make sure it doesn’t.

This is especially true in the case of coal-fired power plants, which are targeted by many of the forthcoming rules. The coal and utility industries have retained an army of lobbyists and congressional champions to kill pollution controls and convince the American public that burning massive amounts of coal and protecting the environment aren’t mutually exclusive.

But they are.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of mercury and global warming pollution in the nation. They also are major sources of pollution that leads to smog and the contamination of water by heavy metals. Getting these facilities to follow the law and clean up will require an engaged public, so we’ll be calling on you—our supporters—many times between now and the end of 2012 to join us in advocating for strong rules.

The EPA is under a court-ordered deadline to issue rules by March 2011 that will limit emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Also in 2011, the agency is expected to adopt limits on global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants. This critical rule is perhaps the best way to reduce the impacts of global warming and clear the way for a clean energy future. Fierce opposition to this rule is expected from industry, some members of Congress, and even some within the Obama administration.

Already moving along are rules to cut ozone pollution and regulate coal ash, the toxic material that remains after coal is burned. Tens of thousands of Earthjustice supporters have contacted the EPA about these proposals, and we will continue to alert you of ways to voice your opinions on these important proposals.

Recent good news demonstrates that our advocacy has paid off. Earlier this month, the EPA released final rules to slash emissions of mercury, particulate matter, acid gases and other dangerous pollutants from cement kilns. The projected benefits of these pollution cuts outweigh the costs to industry by as much as 19 to 1. Despite industry’s shrill, fear-mongering response, the new rules’ positive impact on people and the environment is undeniable.

Securing strong final rules took serious work. After initial rules to clean up cement kilns were proposed in May 2009, the main trade group for the cement industry pushed hard to weaken them. But Earthjustice and its allies mobilized a large response as well. Supporters attended public hearings, sent thousands of emails, made phone calls and urged the EPA to stand strong.

We’ll need to organize similar efforts for all of the upcoming rules, because big polluters certainly haven’t lost their touch. Mouthpieces for industry have expertly cajoled and threatened their way out of complying with the Clean Air Act before. That won’t change because change does not benefit the polluter.

Year after year, industry benefits financially from lax control while we get stuck with the bill: asthma, heart attacks, birth defects, cancer and other serious ailments. Moreover, the entire planet faces the specter of uncontrolled climate change, for which the aforementioned industries, particularly coal-fired power plants, are culpable.

Year after year, industry benefits financially from lax control while we get stuck with the bill: asthma, heart attacks, birth defects, cancer and other serious ailments. Moreover, the entire planet faces the specter of uncontrolled climate change, for which the aforementioned industries, particularly coal-fired power plants, are culpable.

The EPA’s upcoming rules can help correct this imbalance. It is the responsibility of all concerned citizens to ensure that the agency’s efforts are all bite so that big polluters aren’t allowed to slip away again.

http://unearthed.earthjustice.org/blog/2010-august/air-pollution-price-tag—our-health-or-their-wealth

By JUDY FAHYS
The Salt Lake Tribune

The Environmental Protection Agency has for years put Kennecott Utah Copper near the top of the nation’s biggest toxic polluters.

So it might sound odd that Utah environmentalists are eager to sit down with company leaders immediately to talk about the mining giant’s ambitious plans to expand the mine and extend its operations by 13 years. The environmentalists want to limit the harm more mining might cause the surrounding air, water and land.

“The feeling we have about Kennecott on the ground,” says Utah Clean Air Alliance member Terry Marasco, “is we really need their help cleaning up the air.”

He said cooperation — not knee-jerk objections — will be critical in ensuring the expansion does not worsen the Wasatch Front’s air quality.

More demand for water, more potential for dust, more truck fumes, more plant emissions from an expansion could potentially add to pollution problems. And already, he noted, Salt Lake County faces a crackdown on federal air-quality standards for three pollutants: ozone, PM 2.5 and PM 10.

“It’s not about Kennecott,” Marasco said. “It’s about an overburdened air shed.”

“It’s not about Kennecott,” Marasco said. “It’s about an overburdened air shed.”

Jana Kettering, a spokeswoman for Kennecott’s parent company Rio Tinto, said about 25 of the company’s 70 primary environmental permits need to be updated for the expansion.

She said Kennecott’s community-relations team is preparing to meet with environmentalists in the next few weeks to update them on the plans.

And, until the first permit request lands in the Utah Division of Air Quality’s in-box this week, she will decline to discuss details about changes in pollution and how the company plans to deal with it.

“We’ve done a significant amount of [pollution] modeling,” she said. “We want to submit them to the [Department of Environmental Quality] before we talk about them.”

Air Quality Director Cheryl Heying said she expects to see the initial pollution-management plan for the expansion Wednesday.

“The burden of proof will be on them to show the impact,” Heying said, adding that her agency’s review “will be rigorous.”

Ivan Weber, a healthy-environment advocate who once worked at the Bingham Canyon mine, said it’s logical to imagine more pollution as the company expands the mining pit’s girth on the south end and begins digging deeper to reach 700 million more tons of copper. It will mean added truck traffic, ore crushing and more processing-plant emissions.

But he would rather see it done well here than to have the environmental impacts sprout up in some new place that does not have proper controls. Furnishing an important metal like copper also has costs on human health, wildlife and the environment that need to be taken into account as the proposal is considered, he noted.

Though he remains a bit suspicious of the company’s community outreach, he is also hopeful.

“I guess I would give them the benefit of the doubt at this point so people can sit down and talk about it.”

The Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public hearing on Thursday in Chicago to discuss its proposed “Transport Rule.” The rule, which is intended to replace the 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule, would reduce the amount of ozone and fine particle pollution from power plants that drifts across the borders of 31 states and the District of Columbia. It is also designed to help areas in the eastern U.S. meet existing national air quality health standards.

According to the EPA, ozone and fine particle pollution causes thousands of premature deaths and illnesses each year. These pollutants also reduce visibility and damage sensitive ecosystems, such as the Adirondack and Appalachian lakes, coastal waters and estuaries and sugar maple forests.

If enacted, the Transport Rule and other EPA actions will reportedly reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants by 6.4 million tons per year by 2014. Nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants are estimated to drop by 1.4 million tons per year. However, a new report (.pdf) funded by eight utility companies, showed the new regulations will not hurt the reliability of the electric grid.

To achieve these goals, affected power plants may operate already installed control equipment more frequently, use low sulfur coal or install control equipment such as low NOx burners, selective catalytic reduction or scrubbers, POWER-GEN WorldWide reported. Block Andrews, strategic environmental solutions associate with Burns & McDonnell, said the EPA’s requirements will be challenging for many power plants to achieve. “EPA claims that if we operate at the maximum design level, as well as adding some fuel switching, then we can get there. My gut feel is that it’s going to be difficult,” Andrews said.

The Transport Rule is expected to cost $2.8 billion a year to enforce, but the EPA says it will yield more than $120 to $290 billion in annual benefits in 2014.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynewspoint/ynewspoint_ts3433