Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2006 8:23:10 GMT -5
Good point on that inversion haze! What is that anyhow?? Utah is imaged as an ultra-clean, pure place and you drive or fly into town and there's this horrible ick hanging in the air. It's not gray or black, its green! Ewww. How do we fix that, other than stopping the sale of 85 octane gas??
|
|
|
Post by UTRadioGuide.com on Dec 4, 2006 10:30:07 GMT -5
This time of year we get smog like L.A. I agree, it's not good. I doubt it's entirely 85 grade gasoline - Geneva steel's demolition has resulted in "cleaner air" but I can't tell the difference between now and back when Geneva was operating. I do think wood burning stoves contribute to it, giving us the nasty part we see, but isn't that harmful to your health. It's the invisible stuff from factories and cars that you can't see that's dangerous to our health.
|
|
|
Post by dolt on Dec 4, 2006 12:46:25 GMT -5
Chlorine gas is green. Don't mess with the elephant sitting in the parlor.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2006 13:21:38 GMT -5
Are the oil refineries in north salt lake pretty clean? I always see them burning excess off. Is that whole process pretty clean or is it?
|
|
|
Post by grimbasement on Dec 5, 2006 13:12:05 GMT -5
There are a number of contributing factors to the inversion. First is geography. Watch after a storm how long it takes the brown haze near downtown and North Salt Lake to appear after a cleansing storm... how about 12 hours.
The problem is not with 85 Octane gas the problem is social. Just about everyone in Utah wants their 1/3 to 1/2 acre lot in the suburbs. The more 1/2 acre lots you have the farther people have to drive and the more gunk gets dumped in the air. My friends wife works at Hill AFB as a civilian and studies air pollution and she says that particulate matter in the air along the Wasatch front is way worse than Los Angeles some times by 2 times the level. But Utahns don't care. Granted it's better than it was 40 years ago because there are less coal fireplaces. But just this morning I had an asthma attack on the way to work and the inversion isn't even bad yet.
There is no political will to make any significant changes either. Our fine legislature is too busy pushing for "divine design" to be taught in school and taking money and favors from anti-environmental lobbyists to be worried about trivial things such as air quality.
Everything is political and the Dub administration won't be enforcing clean air standards. If the feds get their act together and start enforcing the clean air standards and cutting Utah off from federal funds for highway construction, only then will we see changes... maybe.
Utah has awful air quality and an even worse environmental record. For a group of people that believe they were given stewardship from on high over the whole earth Utahns have failed miserably.
In the reddest of red states environmentalism is derided as communist BS and people who want clean water and air are marginalized. As one of seemingly few voices crying in the wilderness I'm tired of being able to taste the air I breathe!!!.
I still wonder why I moved here 11 years ago. I have a great job but if anything ever happens we're out of here. How I long for the "clean" "fresh" air of Orange County.
|
|
|
Post by dolt on Dec 5, 2006 15:29:35 GMT -5
Magnesium is a valuable comodity.
57.7 million pounds of chlorine gas released into Utah's atmosphere.
|
|
|
Post by stitch on Dec 5, 2006 22:34:41 GMT -5
We have a way to make man-made snow. We seed the clouds. I would think that there would be some way to invent some man-made blower machines for each city and blow this gunk out of her before it gets to bad...
Ok, it might be costly, but this crap in the air causes heart disease and obviously lung and sinus problems. Imagine having a breathing condition! Some people probably can't leave their homes for much of the year!
I hope Governor Huntsman reads these pages. He could put something into action for all people in the state.
I can't imagine that this air quality DOESN'T have a negative effect on tourism too..
Millions of people come here for Sundance every year. Granted, there is no air quality issues in Park City, but many of the films are shown in areas other than PC. Many of them are screened right here in the valleys!
If I were an outsider, I wouldn't come back here at all, after breathing our air! It wouldn't matter if I had a blast in Utah or not! Sorry, I'd have a blast in Southern Utah and at the Ski Resorts and that's it! Eventually, Utah might fall off my list altogether because I could go to Telluride or some other place!
|
|
|
Post by henry on Dec 6, 2006 14:38:33 GMT -5
Don't worry stitch, I'm sure the smog will all go away soon.
|
|
|
Post by grimbasement on Dec 8, 2006 12:31:52 GMT -5
Sorry but Jon Huntsman will only care about the air we breathe if theres a huge paycheck attached to it.
The Huntsman's became billionaires through Huntsman Chemical corp a company with a less than stellar environmental record.
But looking to Jon Jr. to be a savior of the environment is misplaced trust. Just last week Jon Jr. refused to save any national forest land from development of mineral rights, drilling, logging basically his "policy" makes no protection of our national forest lands in Utah. Recent legislation in Washington turned control of National Forest uses to the individual states and essentially undid Clinton Administration policy regarding national forest land. Idaho, Colorado and of course California used their new power to limit development of national forest lands. Not Utah... the invitation to rape, pillage and plunder is always open. Not a single acre was set aside to be protected. Thanks Jon Jr. !!!!
|
|
|
Post by UTRadioGuide.com on Dec 8, 2006 12:40:55 GMT -5
I don't have asthma - maybe I'd disagree if I did .... but compared to other cities our air seems pretty darn clean. You get the whole inverstion thing, but most of the rest of the year it's pretty clear. It's not like San Bernardino where you can't even see the mountain anymore.
|
|
|
Post by dolt on Dec 9, 2006 11:48:27 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by stitch on Dec 9, 2006 12:29:22 GMT -5
Thanks 4 that ray of hope, Henry! Very cool volcanocam link, Dolt!
|
|
|
Post by dolt on Jan 28, 2007 17:21:09 GMT -5
Health Advisory Statements Salt Lake, Davis. Utah, Weber, and Cache Counties: Sensitive people with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.
What flavor is breathing today?
|
|
|
Post by stitch on Jan 29, 2007 12:29:49 GMT -5
Hmmm, I'm thinkin' the flavor is smoked erasure. Here's the website for the latest air quality. www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.showlocal&CityID=221Currently, it's at 120, which is cleaner than it was on Saturday at 152... As you'll see by the color legend, we are way off normal in the numbers raange, and that's why we are all gettin' sick! I wonder why 2News uses the slogan Fresh air? I know it means a fresh outlook on the news, but Fresh Air? Not in this lifetime..... There have been budget cuts at the EPA! There goes my fan idea
|
|
|
Post by grimbasement on Jan 30, 2007 13:28:57 GMT -5
Instead of a giant fan how about people stop driving their gas guzzler pick ups and hummers H2s and H3s as single occupancy vehicles. I think both suggestions have an equal opportunity of happening and that's a zero percent chance. I read an article that SLC is the only place in the whole country that is having air quality issues now. The right wing loonies in the legislature give people like Rocky Anderson a bunch of crap because of Rocky's environmental aganda. Wheres the solutions Wheres the leadership from the majority party with regards to environmental issues? Oh right short term profits are more important than everyones health. But the day will come when the economy suffers because nearly everyone will have respiratory issues which means more days missed from work which means less productivity and less $. Over the weekend I went to a screening for sundance at the Broadway theater in SLC and I overheard a lot of conversations most of which regarded the air quality in SLC. Most people that grew up here are probably not aware how bad it is here. Those of us that have lived in coastal areas know how bad it is. Our air quality sucks and not just during the inversions look to North Salt Lake in the heat of summer and you'll see the same brown haze. Groeth projections indicate that the Utah population will double (That's 5,000,000 people folks) by 2050 but a lot of us will be dead by then so it won't really matter right? Can you imagine the inversions then? But short sighted energy "policy" and lax emmisions controls through Bush's "Clean Skies Initiative" and congresses inability to push for higher emissions standards for automobiles nationally will ensure that we're choking for decades to come. Utahns often mock the "left coast" as liberal idiots but all three states (If you're from Utah County that's California, Oregon and Washington) have made stricter emissions standards mandatory by forcing the auto industry to reduce exhaust pollutants by 25% by 2016. What has Utah done? Cuts the Utah EPA budget? Great! It's all about raping, pillaging and plundering the earth its the GOP way. Why do you think companies like Energy Solutions set up shop here?
Here's something choke on: If you drive a car that get 20 MPG 15000 miles per year you are pumping 3600 pounds of pollution into the air. Or 6 pounds per gallon.
Hummers 11250 pounds thats 4.5 tons every year!
Before anyone jumps on me... my Prius... 1800 pounds.
It's not perfect but its a start.
|
|