There is an Answer to Air Pollution in Salt Lake Valley

I know an answer to an issue that has stumped me. The issue? Air pollution in the Salt Lake Valley. For years, I've wondered what can be done. Are we to place huge electric blowers all across the valley to blow the contaminants away? A far-fetched plan, but something has to be done.

About a week ago, I came across an answer, and it is much more basic than monstrous wind blowers. They say the best way to solve a problem is to first to cover the basics of what you are not doing that obviously ought to be done. Kind of like in basketball, if you aren't defending or taking the ball to the hoop, those basic, simple things could be what you need to start doing if you want to start winning.

Now, mind you, all of Utah wonders what we could do to pull our pollution levels down. An article I remember in one of the papers spoke of a committee scurrying around for ideas, and not coming up with much more than getting people to turn off the pilot lights in their furnaces. The article said they just didn't know what to do to meet feed federal standards. The committee just wasn't seeing a good answer.

So, just what are the basics to fighting pollution? What is the most basic of all? Is there anything that reduces pollution? Anything known to man that takes pollution right out of the air, erasing it?

Yes: Plants and trees.

I say that this is an answer, not the only answer, but how much good can be done will not be known until we try.

And, no, we are not trying, at least not much, or in the best way. I see some streets lined with trees, but not many. And, I don't believe there are any of our freeways at all that are walled off by trees.

Can we really say we are trying, then? The best way to attack the pollution, is to fight it right at the source, not waiting for it to be scattered and blown across the valley. Catch it right at the source, before it spreads.

Let's have walls of green on each side of our streets, and trees growing in the medians.

I remember years ago, moving to Southern California and being impressed at the beauty of the freeway medians with their trees and shrubs. Aesthetically, it was much more pleasing that what I see here. Why not make our town prettier and, for the same dollar, remove a little pollution?

I don't know if it is true, but I've heard Southern California's pollution is not as severe as it once was. I might be wrong in wondering if the trees in the medians and along the streets helped in the change, but it does seem logical that they have had some impact, whether by design or chance.

Let me tell you just what a USDA Forest Service paper concluded back in 2006: "A modeling study . . . demonstrates that urban trees remove large amounts of air pollution that consequently improve urban air quality. . . . Integrated studies of tree effects on air pollution reveal that management of urban tree canopy cover could be a viable strategy to improve air quality and help meet clean air standards."

Did you catch that? "Trees remove large amounts of air pollution" -- not just a little, but a lot.

This is a serious enough problem that we should outlay the money necessary to wall our freeways and, where possible, our streets, with trees. It is serious enough that we should widen the street easements, where possible, making room for trees on each side.

If you have a problem (and we do) and you aren't doing something basic (and this is something we aren't doing), then do it. Just as the basic way to fight fire is with water, so one of the basic ways to fight pollution is with trees and greenery.

Why would we not think of this?


http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/other_publishers/OCR/ne_2006_nowak001.pdf

If you want to buy the book, here's where you can: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866706000173