Utah’s air quality regulators are still trying to rake together ways to solve the state’s persistent ozone problems, but lawmakers have blasted their latest solution.
The Division of Air Quality has floated new restrictions to yard care equipment, like leaf blowers, chainsaws, tillers and trimmers, that rely on emissions-spewing two-stroke engines. Utahns in pollution-prone areas would have to curb use of those tools during bouts of bad summer air in an effort to bring the state back into compliance with federal ozone rules. The policy would not include lawn mowers.
It would apply to Davis, Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah and Weber counties. The division also intends to offer incentives for residents to swap out their old gas-powered tools for electric ones.
“Our hope is, of course, most people are conserving water and transitioning away from nonfunctional turf,” Kim Shelley, executive director of the Department of Environmental Quality, told lawmakers at an appropriations subcommittee Friday, “so some of these tools may not even be needed in the future.”
But legislators gave Shelley a lot of blowback over the plan.
“If we have a wildfire season like we have in the past in August or July,” said Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise, “the reality is, you will not be able to use your leaf blower or weed eater a single day in some of those months.”
He also claimed professional landscapers would struggle to stay in business if they can’t use their gas-fueled equipment for days at a time.
“You’re not going to be able to have a commercial landscaping business operating off batteries,” Snider said.
Other lawmakers asked about penalties and questioned whether the approach was too heavy-handed.
“Will someone turn me in if I use my trimmer on the wrong day?” asked Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden. “I don’t want to have that conversation with my constituents.”
Bryce Bird, director of the Division of Air Quality, said regulators would first try to educate Utahns caught using two-stroke engines on bad air days, and any subsequent fines for continued violations would be small.
“The biggest challenge we have right now is with our summer ozone,” Bird said. He added the state stands to lose federal highway funds if it can’t get that pollution problem under control.
Ozone triggers respiratory problems like asthma and emphysema. It irritates and damages the lungs like a sunburn to the airway. It forms when sunlight mixes with compounds and oxides found in exhaust from fossil fuels. And two-stroke motors emit a lot of those pollutants. They don’t have the same emissions controls, catalytic converters and other technologies that modern vehicles install.
“It’s so dramatic,” Bird said, “you could put your family in a car, drive them to Disneyland and produce less emissions of these [polluting compounds] than you do operating a leaf blower for one hour.”
The lawn and garden sector produces 8 tons of emissions each day on the Wasatch Front, Bird said, compared to 13 tons produced by cars and 6 tons produced by industry smokestacks.
DEQ officials launched a “Charge Your Yard” incentive program last spring for small business landscapers to replace two-stroke equipment with electric tools, which they said saw success.
“This, we believe,” Shelley said, “is one of the last pieces of low-hanging fruit.”
The Environmental Protection Agency tightened its ozone standards in 2015 and is looking at revising them again after 2024.
“Some of the regulations are burdensome, we understand that,” Bird said.
Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, said he was willing to cut some slack for the yard equipment proposal.
“What DEQ is trying to do here is to be as compliant, or at least working toward compliance, with a federal regulation that possibly is impossible to comply with,” the lawmaker said. “What the division is trying to do is harmful for our citizens, but there’s a bigger picture here.”
He signaled a bigger fight with the feds on the horizon.
Rep. Doug Owens, D-Millcreek, has requested $6 million to expand the “Charge Your Yard” program. Meanwhile, Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, has requested $250,000 to fund a study demonstrating Utah’s ozone pollution is mostly blowing in from other states and overseas. EPA previously rejected that claim.
For now, the Division of Air Quality plans to open a 30-day public comment period on its proposed two-stroke engine emissions policy starting Feb. 1, although residents can already provide feedback by visiting the division’s website.