On November 07, 2024, Utah International Mountain Forum (UIMF) club leaders, McKay Jones, Ana Caballero Ferreyro and Janessa- Michelle Purcell attended the Growth and Prosperity Summit hosted by the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce with UVU President Astid S Tuimenz as a keynote speaker, at the main campus of UVU. The focus of the summit was to further the growth of Utah Valley by “advocating for the business community, fostering meaningful area development, and maintaining and improving the quality of life in the region.”
The Student-Engaged Learning model at UVU encourages students to work together to identify and address a real life problem. As part of research for their Political Science: Sustainable Mountain Development class, club leaders listened in on the breakout sessions to gain insight to how air pollution is affecting communities on the Wasatch Front. Utah is known for having dangerous levels of air quality, and to investigate the issue further Ana and Janessa attended the Clean Air and Sustainability breakout session.
In this breakout session, a graph showed that Salt Lake County trends higher than Utah County in Small Particulate Matter. In our research this is contributed by the industrialism aspect of Salt Lake. Utah County has more land dedicated to parks that have greenspaces to assist in cleaning the air. With the cheaper land on the west side of Salt Lake, corporations prefer this area for their business which monopolizes the land for business and commercial use. This leaves less space for greenspaces that help not only clear the air but also aid in cooling down the earth. While the 2020 Pandemic had significantly decreased the air pollution from Salt Lake to Utah County, as corporations and businesses bring employees back to their offices the rise in commutes has brought Utah’s levels of air pollution back to unhealthy levels.
Transportation or mobile sources are the biggest contributors to air pollution in Utah. In Utah County, there are higher rates of commutes in personal transportations, versus the higher rates of commutes by public transportation in Salt Lake County. These trends are attributes of the Downtown Salt Lake area being more walkable and having easier access to public transportation compared to Utah County that is more developed as suburbia and more spaced out. When cities are not walkable and lack access to public transportation, an influx of cars on the road lead to more greenhouse gasses being emitted into the air but also influences highway expansions, another contributing factor to air pollution in Utah.
Janessa-Michelle Purcell, Cadde Bloomer and Ana Caballero Ferreyro during the event
Utah is surrounded by mountains and this alone puts Utahns at risk for bad air quality. The added factors of mobile sources, growth of cities, and constructions put Utahs at risk for respiratory diseases. In pursuit of investigating issues that mountain communities face, UIMF club leaders found a connection to other mountainous communities like Nepal, home to the Himalayan mountains. These connections are important for international collaborations to address sustainable development in an ecofriendly way. As the summit highlights key insights to problems of air pollution, it leaves the question of the proper course of actions to fight air pollution not just in Utah but other mountain areas as well.
