SALT LAKE CITY — Air quality challenges in Salt Lake City was the focus of a set of panel discussions on Wednesday, as part of Utah Tech Week.
"At the worst parts of the year, it's probably some of the worst in the whole world," said Carl Luft, Vice President of Tellus Networked Sensor Solutions.
Luft says Tellus provides air quality monitoring solutions to communities and organizations, as well as, focusing on modeling and calibrating the data.
"Specifically with PM 2.5 you know, we have highly elevated B readings during the winter, you know, known as winter inversions and then during the summer we've recently noticed, you know, the dust storm is coming off the Great Salt Lake and then we're known to have ozone," said Luft.
It's something Luft says can pose issues for those breathing in the poor air.
"It causes, you know, a lot of respiratory illnesses and complications, in some of the reports that, you know, they've been able to tally up through research, you know, how many days of school children miss, how many hospital visits people experience and how many days off of work," said Luft.
Luft was one of the panelists on Wednesday, participating in a discussion centered on developing the Environmental Tech Business Landscape in Salt Lake City.
The panel discussions were sponsored and organized by US Ignite, a national nonprofit working to support startups here in Salt Lake.
Those panels, made up of local startup founders, academic researchers, as well as city and state leaders discussed the challenges and potential solutions when it comes to air quality.
"Transportation is by far the biggest source of pollution in this air shed," said Debbie Lyons, Sustainability Director for Salt Lake City.
Lyons told FOX 13 News on Wednesday they've looked a solutions, like electric vehicles and other policies and programs that will help people take more active modes of transportation.
"This year, the city council funded an air quality incentive program where we will be providing vouchers for things like electric bikes, lawn mowers, other yard equipment to electrify to reduce those sources of pollution too with the air quality," said Lyons.
Senator Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, also served as a panelist alongside Lyons during the first session that discussed understanding the air quality issue in Salt Lake.
Sen. Blouin says he has been working on a bill recently that could be a solution.
"I've been looking at this program from New York City for a number of years where citizens can actually use an app and take videos of commercial vehicles that are idling and then they send those to, the authority administering the program and, and they will fine the vehicle and the people actually get paid out of that fine and so you're paying for the program itself," said Sen. Blouin.
While Sen. Blouin says we already have idling laws, this could be a way to get more people involved in the conservation.
"Certainly, idling vehicles are not contributing positively to our air quality issues," said Sen. Blouin.
With different minds talking about different approaches, Lyons hopes they can figure out how to best tackle the issue of air quality.
"We have scientists, we have entrepreneurs, we have policymakers all in the same room, talking about creative solutions and it's going to take all of those approaches to find the best solution," said Lyons.
According to US Ignite, more than 70 participants representing industry, startups, small businesses and nonprofits signed up for Wednesday's event.
