This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I have great news for those of you who love this thick, chewable air with which we have been blessed. It is going to get thicker and happen more often as long as we keep increasing the population of the valley.
If you want the air to stay in the green zone all the time, then we must either reduce the population of the valley by 80 percent or go to an all-electric economy with the power being generated by nuclear or geothermal plants. Wind and solar are unreliable, hydroelectric is subject to drought and water rights issues.
All of the half-baked or futuristic solutions that have been bandied about lately can only buy us limited relief for a short period of time. If we eliminated 100 percent of the pollution emitted by industry, we would be back to the same air in four short years due to added population. If every car were replaced tomorrow by an electric vehicle, we would only have about eight years before we were back to today's mess.
Moms For Clean Air, stop becoming new moms; Physicians For A Healthy Environment, stop delivering new babies. Gov. Herbert, stop attracting new businesses and people to Utah.
Bryan Bauer
Kearns