Utah doctors call inversion a 'Public Health Emergency'


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Updated: 1/23 5:32 pm | Published: 1/23 11:07 am
Reported by: Emily Clark
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Utah doctors are pleading with the Governor to do something about the inversion, they say Utah is dealing with a public health emergency.

For the past three days Utah cities have been at the top of the list for the worst air in the country. Inversions are nothing new for the state, but this year it has reached a new level.

According to Utah's Division of Air Quality, this year's inversions are hitting Utah harder and more frequently than they have in years. In 2002, Salt Lake City had six air quality alert days. So far this winter there have been 19.

The group of doctors have signed a letter asking the state "To take emergency action to address it, and do everything possible to immediately reduce sources of air pollution."

The letter outlines seven requests:

1. Reduce freeway speed limits to 55 mph which improves fuel efficiency and reduces pollution.

2. Make all means of mass transit free for the remainder of the winter season and ask the legislature to make up the revenue loss to the UTA.

3. Require the largest industrial pollution sources.

4. Require a shut down of incinerator related businesses.

5. Prohibit wood burning period.

6. Launch public service announcements from state and local officials, including the governor, acknowledging the emergency and asking for businesses to accommodate Telecommuting where possible and reduce employee driving.

7. We advise the public to avoid any exercise outdoors, and check with their own physicians about adopting an anti-inflammatory regimen.


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Dennis - 1/23/2013 3:45 PM
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"3. Require the largest industrial pollution sources." -- to do what? Do we really need to make every last thing an "emergency" or crisis these days? Are people dropping like flies all over the place from a natural phenomenon that occurs along the Wasatch Front every year at this time? Or do we just have a bunch of young doctors with a hair-trigger mentality who aren't old enough to remember when most houses were heated with coal stokers and during the cold-weather months the air was filled with soot that blanketed everything? -- not only for a few days, but all winter long. Yet somehow we managed to survive it none the worse for wear. And since the Utah Division of Air Quality is powerless to do anything but report on those inversions, as it can't control that phenomenon, why do doctors seem to think the governor could do it? But the next time they decide to petition the governor to perform some miraculous "act of God" that he is no more capable of performing than they are, they would seemingly do well to consider hiring a competent secretarial service to at least word their letter in intelligible sentences so we average lay persons could begin to understand it. After all, we will be the one's footing the bill for whatever those geniuses in the state legislature might dream up in order to help God out with His local inversion problem that He can never quite seem to get a handle on around here. But I sure do hope God checked with his physician "about adopting an anti-inflammatory regimen" or no telling what He might be in for during this current emergency. And since God ain't real big on using money, He'd better pray His scholarly physician accepts charity cases while he explains what that phrase actually means, because God knows His lay followers would never figure it out for themselves. So it seems a lot easier to just stick with apples while waiting for the next wind to clear the air, which it has never yet failed to do. :) :) :)
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