For the past three years, Utah has dodged the ozone bullet.
The state has recorded no violations of the Clean Air Act's standard for ozone since 1990.While state officials are quick to point out that the good record is the result of tough pollution-control measures, environmentalists warily note that the state has been lucky because of unusual weather patterns and because of inadequate monitoring.
In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently told the state that its monitors are not in all the right places.
Largely because of NOAA's suggestion, the state is more than doubling the number of ozone-monitoring stations. Currently, the stations, which cost more than $50,000 each, are located in Salt Lake City, Cottonwood, Bountiful, Roy and north Provo.
Six new stations will be in operation this summer. They will be located in North Ogden and Washington Terrace, Weber County; Springville and Highland, Utah County; Herriman; and at the Great Salt Lake Marina.
It's likely that the new monitors will detect violations of the ozone standard, said Scott Endicott of the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club. "We've been very close to the standard . . . If you put monitors where they should be, we'd be over the standard."
In the stratosphere, ozone helps block out the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. But at ground level, where it is produced by a combination of hydrocarbons and sunlight, the gas is a pollutant that can cause respiratory distress and damage lung tissue.
Last summer, the state Division of Air Quality put out ozone-reaction filters at 68 locations along the Wasatch Front. The data was sent to NOAA, which suggested that the state was insufficiently monitoring for ozone in north and east Weber County; in west and southwest Salt Lake County; and in the south, southeast and north part of Utah County.
"Based on our data, (NOAA) said there were areas where we need to do additional monitoring if we are to fully address ozone issues along the Wasatch Front," said Bob Dalley, director of air monitoring for the division.
Dalley said the additional monitoring centers "may measure higher concentrations (of ozone) than we have had" but would not speculate on whether the concentrations will violate the federal standards.
If that happens, however, it "would certainly complicate" the state's bid to become redesignated as an attainment area for the ozone standard.