After 13 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to remove the Salt Lake metro region from its list of areas that violate its 24-hour pollution standards for fine particulates.
That’s partly because the state has made efforts to reduce its emissions and partly because Utah has been, well, lucky.
“Luck is a big part of this,” said Thom Carter, executive director of the Utah Clean Air Partnership, or UCAIR. “Remember, our air-quality problem starts as a weather issue. It all has to do with inversion.”
And temperature inversions, which trap dirty air in the Salt Lake Valley, were less severe from 2016 through 18.