Small farm trucks will no longer be exempt from emission inspections under a recommendation from health officials concerned about air quality along the Wasatch Front.
State law currently exempts farm trucks from emission standards in the four counties along the Wasatch Front trying to meet increasingly tough federal standards.Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties require emissions testing.
Richard Harvey, head of the Davis County Health Department's environmental health division, said Tuesday that a study committee will recommend that the state Legislature eliminate exemptions for farm trucks under 12,000 pounds.
A study of the light trucks - especially pickups - registered as farm vehicles in the four affected counties showed widespread abuse of the exemption, Harvey said.
Requiring farm-truck registrants to prove they own agricultural property reduced the number of registrations by almost a fourth, from 2,000 to about 1,600 in the four counties, Harvey said.
"The exemption was supposed to be only for trucks used strictly for farm-related activities," Harvey told the county health board Tuesday. "When you see one going down the road with a camper shell on it or towing a boat, you know it's not just a farm truck.
"We also know that most of those people are getting the exemptions just to skip the emissions testing," Harvey said. "That's not really fair, with the rest of the vehicle owners having to meet increasingly strict emission standards."
Removing the emission exemption for trucks under 12,000 pounds would not work too great a hardship on farmers, Harvey said.
Large trucks, such as 3-ton and 4-ton work trucks, would not be affected. And since all farm trucks have to undergo a safety inspection, an emissions check for the smaller trucks would not require an extra trip, Harvey said.
Because only the four counties along the urbanized Wasatch Front require emissions testing, farm trucks in rural areas would not be affected by striking the exemption, Harvey told the board.
Harvey said efforts are being made to track down owners who register their vehicles in Idaho or Wyoming, also to avoid emissions testing.
In addition to their impact on air quality, false out-of-state registrations cost the affected counties tax revenue, Harvey said.
"If there are 1,000 cars in a county registered illegally out of state - and that's not a farfetched estimate - and each registration is worth $50 in fees, counties could be losing $50,000 a year," Harvey said. "And in county government, that's a significant amount."