Booming Utah’s Weak Link: Surging Air Pollution

A red-hot economy, wildfire smoke from California and the shriveling of the Great Salt Lake are making Utah’s alarming pollution even worse.

Utah’s air pollution made the New York Times, and certainly not in a good way. “A red-hot economy, wildfire smoke from California and the shriveling of the Great Salt Lake are making Utah’s alarming pollution even worse.”

“Shrouded in smoke drifting from California’s colossal wildfires 500 miles away, Salt Lake City had on that morning edged past smog-choked megacities like New Delhi and Jakarta to register the most polluted air of any major city in the world.”

They asked UPHE to weigh in: “Every time the wind blows, we’re subject to the dust from these dry lake beds being scattered all over,” said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “There are residuals of pesticides and agricultural chemicals that migrated into the lake over many decades.”

Read the full article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/us/great-salt-lake-utah-air-quality.html