The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to include the Tooele Valley as a nonattainment area for fine-particle pollution has galvanized local leaders to challenge the EPA via legal channels. The EPA has, thus far, provided little sound science behind the reason for it’s decision, leaving many to feel that Tooele Valley is being unfairly lumped in with the Wasatch Front on nothing more than the theory that local commuters contribute to pollution problems one valley eastward.

We’re not sure how this battle will play out, but we worry about it obscuring the need for greater awareness of air quality matters here at home.

News last week that air quality filter data from Tooele’s air monitoring station is only taken once every three days, compared to daily along the Wasatch Front, is cause for worry. We need daily samples taken and that data made available in a timely fashion to the public. That would create the sort of widespread awareness of air quality that allows for changing behaviors. A warning system of red, yellow and green days — similar to the one use along the Wasatch Front — would also be useful locally.

Jeff Coombs, deputy director of the Tooele County Health Department, said last week he’s working with the state Division of Air Quality to make Tooele Valley air quality conditions available online. That data would include forecasts for fine-particle pollution in the winter and ozone pollution in the summer.

In our opinion, such a site would be of tremendous community benefit. Right now, many local residents cast their eyes up and come to the conclusion that Tooele Valley has no air pollution problems — or at least none as serious as those that are constantly reported on along the Wasatch Front. But that’s a bit like seeing storm clouds to the east and thinking the weather will remain fine here.

Many of the factors that have made Salt Lake City’s wintertime air quality so unhealthy are also at play in the Tooele Valley: fast population growth, a high percentage of residents commuting to work, and naturally occurring inversions. When we look at the skies above Salt Lake City, it should be with one question in mind: How can we prevent the same problem from happening here?

Right now, too little is known about local air quality. And even if our air quality is good at present, we need better monitoring and increased public awareness to keep it that way.