Q. What causes an inversion?
A. Mountains surrounding a valley, cold temperatures, and no wind or storms for several days cause pollution to build up and stay trapped underneath the warmer air above.
Q. What is particulate matter?
A. Particulate matter (PM), also known as particle pollution, is a complex mixture of extremely small dust and soot particles. These particles are so small that they can become embedded in human lung tissue, causing respiratory diseases and cardiovascular problems
Q. Is Utah's air quality bad all year round?
A. No, usually just when an inversion sets in.
Q. Why is Utah's air so bad in the winter?
A. The main cause is due to the inversion
Q. Where does Utah rank among U.S. states for poor air quality?
A. Salt Lake City and Provo are clumped together with cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Seattle as the cities affected with poor air quality in the West.
Q. What can be done to improve Utah's air quality?
A. Anything that will decrease the pollution created. Carpooling, biking, turning the car off rather than idle for long periods of time, maintain home furnaces, keep vehicles well maintained
Q. What do the different red, yellow, and green burn days mean?
A. They refer to wood burning conditions. Red prohibits wood burning. Yellow calls for a reduction in wood and coal burning. Green means wood burning is allowed.
Q. What is smog?
A. A mixture of pollutants, principally ground-level ozone, produced by chemical reactions in the air involving smog-forming chemicals. A major portion of smog-formers comes from burning petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline.
Q. What adverse health effects does the poor air quality have on people?
A. Poor air quality can cause or worsen existing asthma, lung and respiratory functions. It can cause greater risk to Sudden infant Death Syndrome, limits lung growth capacity, and can cause systemic inflammatory response in the arterial system which affects all organs and accelerates atherosclerosis.
Q. Are there any regulations for controlling Utah's air quality?
A. The EPA issues National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). While there are standards set, each city or region does not necessarily meet those standards all the time. As has been mentioned previously, there are day-to-day regulation on burn days.
For more information refer to Clean Air Utah, and Air Quality
For definitions of air pollution terms see Glossary of Air Pollution
