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.