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Abigail Mendenhall Professor Williamson Introductory Chemistry 116 29 April 2013 Air Pollution in Salt Lake City, Utah

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Perhaps because it was home to the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City, Utah generally conjures up images of skiers against a backdrop of tall, beautiful snow-covered mountains and pristine blue skies. However, as stated by Judy Fahys in the January 24th issue of The Salt Lake Tribune, the air quality has become so terrible in the Salt Lake Valley, that for this winter, Several northern Utah counties . . . have already exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys health standard of 35 micrograms of pollution per cubic liter of air more than a dozen times thus far this season (Fahys, No Sure Solution . . . ). The air pollutants are so concentrated on some cold days, that schools, parents, and those with asthma or other breathing complications have to check the daily air quality forecast to know whether it will be safe to have outdoor recess or participate in any sort of outdoor activity (Lewis). Viewing the most common sources of pollutants collectively, such as driving a gas-powered vehicle and simply running the average household appliances, population density vs. moles of pollutant emission should be somewhat directly related. One could reasonably assume that a population-dense area such as Los Angeles and its suburbs - an estimated population of over 16 million - would have a more serious problem with pollution than the comparatively sparsely populated Salt Lake Valley with an estimated population of one million (County of Los Angeles & Utah Dept. of Environmental Quality).

Mendenhall 2 According to The American Lung Association however, the Salt Lake City-Ogden-Clearfield,

UT region is ranked #6 on the national list of areas with the worst short-term particle air pollution. Considering the magnitude of the difference in population and therefore pollutant emission between the two, the fact that the Salt Lake area scores only two places below the Los AngelesLong Beach-Riverside, CA region (#4) is astounding (Most Polluted Cities). The intense layer of pollution that settles over the Salt Lake Valley during the winter is due in large part to a phenomenon known as a thermal inversion, where the air high above the ground is warmer than the air below (IUPAC). This particular inversion is caused by the unique geography of the valley combined with extremely cold temperatures. As stated before, The Salt Lake Valley is known for being surrounded by tall mountains, which cause cold air to flow from the peaks down into the valley. This cold air pushes under the warmer air rising from the valley, creating the inversion. The right meteorological constraints ( extremely cold temperatures and no breezes) cause the cold air to become trapped, also trapping pollutants held in place beneath a layer of warm air, often for many days at a time until weather conditions change (Utah Dept. of Environmental Quality). This makes sense when looking at American Lungs ranking of the cities with the worst year-round particle pollution; the Los Angeles area moves up to #3 and the Salt Lake area does not even make the chart (Most Polluted Cities). As we have discussed in class, pollutants can be divided into primary and secondary pollutants. The combustion reactions that take place during the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles is a source of primary pollutants which are chemicals that are emitted directly into the atmosphere. Some of the primary pollutants produced when driving include CO2, CO, CH4, NO, and particulate matter. Secondary pollutants result from the chemical and photochemical reactions

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that take place involving primary pollutants, sunlight, and other atmospheric gases. Some secondary pollutants caused indirectly by driving include O3, NO2, and the particularly toxic chemical peroxyacetyl nitrate (Smog Formation Review). When these primary and secondary pollutant chemicals are present in unnatural amounts, it causes problems. For example, the secondary pollutant O3 (ozone) is a strong oxidizer that can very negatively affect the respiratory system and lead to the damage of lung tissues. Chronic exposure to elevated ozone levels have even been shown to cause a decrease in immune system functionality (Smog Formation Review). Driving is one of the biggest contributors of primary pollutants in the atmosphere; The Utah Department of Environmental Quality urges locals to carpool and otherwise limit driving time as much as possible, especially when the area is experiencing an inversion (Utah Dept. of Environmental Quality). The simple act of carpooling might not seem to be a change that would produce a significant difference in pollution levels. After calculating the difference in production of CO2 after a theoretical change in general local driving habits however, the significance of minimal reductions of the time that locals spend on the road is shown. Based on a general equation for the combustion of gasoline (the chemical make-up of gasoline is variable), I found that for each gallon of gas burned, about 8.6 kilograms of CO2 are produced (values used in calculations from Specific Gravity of Liquids). If one were to theoretically assume that every individual in the Salt Lake Valleys population of one million people had a car and burned one gallon of gas each day, 8.6 million kilograms of CO2 would be produced each day. If only half of the population started to carpool with one other individual, the amount of CO2 produced each day would decrease by 2.15 million kilograms. Over a five-day work week, the difference in CO2 production would escalate to 107.5 million kilograms less than

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if no one was carpooling at all. Although theoretical and incredibly over-simplified, these large numerical differences represent the significance that our small environmentally-conscious efforts make in the long-run. If the locals make a collective effort to reduce their emissions, even by minimal reductions, it will have a significant effect on the overall emission of primary pollutants into the atmosphere, and thus alleviate and start to counteract the effects of the inversion.

! Work Cited

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The American Lung Association. State of the Air. Most Polluted Cities. Washington, DC: American Lung Association, 2013. Print. <http://www.stateoftheair.org/2012/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html>. County of Los Angeles. California Department of Finance. Estimated Population of the 88 Cities in the County of Los Angeles. Los Angeles: , 2010. Web. <http://ceo.lacounty.gov/forms/Population Pg_Color.pdf>. Fahys, Judy. "No Sure Solution in Sight for Utah." The Salt Lake Tribune 24 Ja 2013, n. pag. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. <http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55695303-78/pollution-utah-cubic-micrograms.html.csp> IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997). XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8. doi:10.1351/goldbook. Lewis, Cindy. Personal Family Interview. 29 Nov 2012. "Smog Formation Review." West Virginia University, 20 Oct 2010. Web. 21 Apr 2013. <http://assets.slate.wvu.edu/resources/527/1268837757.pdf>. "Specific Gravity of Liquids." simetric.co.uk. Roger Walker, n.d. Web. 29 Apr 2013. <http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_liquids.htm>. Utah Department of Environmental Quality, , ed. "Choose Clean Air!." Utah.gov. State of Utah, n.d. Web. 27 March 2013. <http://www.airquality.utah.gov/clean_air/archive/inversion.htm>.