NORTH SALT LAKE, Utah — When you’re driving along U.S. 89 in North Salt Lake, you may notice the giant gravel pits that can send up plumes of dust when it gets windy, causing headaches for those who live nearby
Peter Phippen has been a North Salt Lake resident for 9 years, and while some days the view is beautiful, on windy days it can be anything but.
“The dust is, it's just a public nuisance… It's bad," Phippen said.
Living right next to several major gravel pits means the dust gets everywhere.
"It just layers everything inside the office, and especially outside the office, in a layer of dust as it seeps in through the windows," said Phippen.
The Utah Division of Air Quality says the companies managing the pits are in charge of their own mitigation, but there are ways the state can step in, such as keeping an eye on resident complaint forms.
“We'll meet with the company, let them know, say, 'Hey, we were getting concerns on your operation. We're out here now, we're observing a lot of dust, you need to mitigate that,'" explained the agency's Chad Gilgen.
If the companies don’t work on their issue, they can get cited. But what does the mitigation process look like?
“Just water sprays, water trucks," said Gilgen, "and we know once the summertime really hits, that ... it's really hard to keep up on that, because we have limited water,”
And Gilgen said mitigation can only do so much when winds are high.
“If we get complaints and we go out and it's over 25 miles per hour winds, [the companies are] like, 'Hey, we're doing everything we can, we're watering, we're covering,' then there's that exemption," he said.
Phippen doesn't believe it.
“I call BS," he said. "Even if the wind is bad, you have moisture techniques. We live in such a sophisticated scientific environment that we have ways that we can control that dust.”
While residents are encouraged to fill out complaint forms with the state, which can be found by searching a web browser for "Utah air quality complaint form." Phippen just wants something to change.
"We love the companies, and we love and value what they do," he said. "We just believe that they could take a bit more effort to appreciate us as their customers and help us keep our lungs, air, and children free of this type of contamination.”
