Focus is on monitoring air inversions in eastern Utah

Environmental groups want state officials to reinstate year-round air monitoring in Utah's Uinta Basin, where energy development has dramatically increased in recent years.

State environmental officials, though, said they don't have the money for the long-term monitors in the basin. Instead, they're focusing on tracking pollution during winter inversions, when most of the problems have been reported.

The Utah Division of Air Quality installed an air-monitoring station in Vernal in December 2006, noting that natural-gas production in the basin had ramped up.

The equipment picked up several instances where fine particulates — tiny flecks of airborne pollution — exceeded federal health standards. Those unhealthy spikes came as weather inversions trapped air in low-lying areas around Vernal.

"The air quality is very good except during those inversions," said Bryce Bird, branch manager for the Utah Division of Air Quality.

Monitoring in Vernal shut down in December 2007. Bird said state officials decided the funding and equipment would be better used to meet federally required pollution monitoring along the more populated Wasatch Front.

But crews will return to the Vernal area this winter with portable equipment to monitor bad air during the inversions, Bird said. The air-quality division is hoping the work will pinpoint pollution sources.

Suspects include several activities associated with energy development, including increased truck traffic, processing operations and more workers living, working and driving in the area.

The problem will only get worse as development increases in the basin, according to several environmental groups who wrote to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

"Impending energy development in the region is sure to exacerbate serious health problems caused by already-degraded air quality," Joro Walker, an attorney for Western Resource Advocates, wrote to Bird.

The comments come as the state prepares its annual plan for air monitoring across Utah.

The letter was written on behalf of Utah Moms for Clean Air, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters of Utah and HEAL Utah.