Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment Offer Prescription for Pollution

Dr. Brian Moench presented the consensus of these prominent physicians, backed by a plethora of scientific data.

He states, paraphrased, "Many Utahns are sick and dying, with children and future generations being severely affected. We see that a major cause of these illnesses relate to Utah’s increasingly contaminated air, which is expected to get much worse with the anticipated growth in Utah’s population and with the increased use of automobiles."

We offer the following prescriptions:

1. Implementing a moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants in our state and retrofit existing plants with state of the art control technologies.
2. Reduce the speed limits along the Wasatch Front on bad air days.
3. Plan for major expansions of mass transit service throughout the Wasatch Front. Make it free to the public.
4. Reduce Utah’s air pollutants by 20% through numerous strategies such as assessing auto taxes based on a car’s MPG.
5. Provide for more monitoring and studies of environmental health conditions, such umbilical cord blood testing for chemicals and toxins.
6. Significantly increases public strategies to increase public awareness regarding impacts from air pollution, such as a public high school course on public health consequences of environmental pollution and live air quality data signs along I-15.
7. Air pollution warning indices should be expanded to include pregnant women.
8. School bus fleets should not idle in school yards while waiting for students -- the engine should be shut off, to decrease children’s exposure to diesel exhaust.
9. Encourage school districts to use school buses that run on alternative fuels.

Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment

April 2, 2007

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

Dr. Brian Moench --

• Many Utahns are sick and dying, with children and future generations being severely affected.
• A prominent group of physicians have diagnosed the major cause to be Utah’s increasingly contaminated air.
• It is expected to get much worse with the anticipated growth in Utah’s population and the increased use of automobiles.

Dr. Richard Kanner --

• Studies show that fine particulates cause an increase in morbidity and mortality in people with heart and lung disease. There is no threshold value.

• Ozone is an oxidizing agent that damages the airways and lungs and results in inflammatory mediator enter the blood, thereby resulting in potential injury in other parts of the body.

Dr. Maunsel Pearce --

• Coal fired power plants are the major source of U.S. mercury emissions.

• Methyl mercury in the environment is a neurotoxin that crosses the placenta, concentrating in fetal blood up to 1.9 times the level of maternal blood and causes measurable and permanent brain injury to the developing fetus and young child.

• Mercury contamination in Utah waters is widespread with mercury advisories limiting consumption of freshwater fish in three different areas of the state and waterfowl on the Great Salt Lake.

• Both humans and wildlife are at risk from consumption of food contaminated with mercury.

• Mercury emissions in Utah and Nevada are excessive. The sources of this mercury contamination must be thoroughly investigated and controlled.

Dr. Gerald H. Ross --

• A Texas study of 1200 school districts (over 200,000 students) showed a 61% increase in the rate of autism for each 1,000 lb. of environmentally released mercury within a geographic area, when comparing it with county–by-county mercury emissions, mostly from coal-fired power plants.

• A Polish study showed that infants with cord blood mercury greater than of 0.80 (still a very low level) were 3.8 times more likely to have delayed neurological function, than infants with mercury levels lower than this level.

Dr. Shelly Ring

• Children and infants are the most vulnerable to the many air pollutants due to the fact that they have an increased exposure to air pollutants when compared to adults

• Studies have demonstrated a clear association between infant mortality and ambient air pollution.

• Asthma rates in the U.S. have increased over 100% since 1980. In Utah, approximately 61,000 children are afflicted with asthma

• Motor vehicle traffic along the Wasatch Front is predicted to double within 20 years.

• Salt Lake City already ranks 5th among the most polluted U.S. cities.