Air Pollution

SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring better pollution controls at two of Utah's oldest coal-fired power plants to reduce haze that the agency says has cut views by half across national parks and wilderness areas.

MORGAN — For the third year in a row, Morgan County is the healthiest county in the state, according to a national report.

The County Health Rankings report, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, compares counties in a number of categories, including healthy behavior, clinical care and social and economic factors.

Utahns can now learn what — other than cars — causes the winter pollution that so concerns the Division of Air Quality.

Snowblowers, domestic animals, farm machinery, graphic art chemicals and deep-frying equipment also add to the pollutants in the air, according to a DAQ report released Monday.

Air pollution, even at levels considered safe, are anything but, according to a new study.

A report, published in the Feb. 14 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, by researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, found that exposure to ambient fine particulate matter, usually from vehicle traffic, was associated with a significantly higher risk of ischemic strokes on days when the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality index for particulate matter was yellow instead of green.

Kathy Clark at Venture Academy wanted me to tell her students how to get involved with their community, and maybe even suggest a project.

This is a personal request to everyone who lets their car idle for even a minute on these nippy cold mornings.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Division of Air Quality is now enforcing wood-burning restrictions on "red" air-quality days when the use of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces is prohibited because of poor air quality.

This is the time of year when DAQ's three-day forecasts track the hard-to-see particles caused primarily by vehicle emissions, wood-burning stoves and fireplaces that can shroud the valley in pollution-trapping inversions.