The Governor's Commission on Clean Air staked out its priorities Thursday afternoon.
First, find the best way to meet federal clean-air standards. Then, decide how to maintain them once they're met.The panel of about 35 leaders represents groups as diverse as the Sierra Club and Utah County's Geneva Steel. The group will make recommendations on its goals by next year's legislative session, Gov. Norm Bangerter told the panel.
Further down the priority list is looking at how to control toxic chemicals in the air that are not regulated, and how to clean up visual pollutants like winter fog.
Noel H. DeNevers, a member of the group's executive committee, said the two main objectives are unavoidable, under federal law. And the question of toxic pollutants should be examined because it concerns human health.
"The public will not feel we've done our job if we do not address some of those other issues," said Dr. Suzanne Dandoy, director of the Utah Health Department. But perhaps they can't be covered in the next six months, she said.
DeNevers said air-pollution problems might not even be solved before the next ice age.
"This commission ought to be involved as long as we have major issues to deal with," Bangerter said. "I would not presume we would be through with these issues by the end of the ice age, let alone this December."
He predicted the advisory group will operate for a "good, long time . . . It's going to be a very hot topic."
Kenneth Alkema, director of the Utah Division of Environmental Health, said the first concern of five working groups that have been set up should be tiny particulates designated PM10. The state is under an Environmental Protection Agency deadline to devise a way to combat these microscopic dust pollutants by August, he said.
In order to have any input into the deliberations of the Utah Air Conservation Committee, the commission should make a recommendation on PM10 at its July meeting, he added.
Bangerter said the state can't risk EPA sanctions. He urged the commission to "make sure that when they (EPA officials) do decide to get tough, that we're OK . . .
"And that's secondary to the real issue, which is the health of our people."
The governor asked the commissioners to proceed calmly, focusing on the facts, because clean air is a question it's easy to get emotional about.
He he instructed the panel to help Utah arrive at a "more comfortable feeling about where we are with our environment."