>> hi, i'm lisa fletcher, and you're in "the stream." outdoor enthusiasts flock to utah for the state parks, but for the people who call it home, they're asking if the health of the people and the state tourism are in jeopardy. as always, our digital producer, rajahad ali is here, bringing in all of your social media in the show. utah's slogan, "the greatest snow on earth" and lots of folks

are shocked to find out the level of air musician in the state. >> i'm from california, and we thought we had the worst air pollution, and a lot of californiaians go to utah for snowboarding and the parks, right, and the sochi olympians trained there. and we find out second worst airlution pollution in the nation: my friend, fatima, sent me this picture from utah. check out these beautiful mountains. the same with the pollution, that's what they're witnessing root now, and who are we to blame? that's another point of contention, who is it to blame?

the industries, the government, the people? and we have a lot of feedback. >> wood stoves, they have some hand in it. and we'll try to figure this out in the program. while team usa goes to the gold, there's a battle ground going on in one of their main training grounds. utah has some of the worst air pollution in the country, because the polluted air gets trapped in the valleys, especially around salt lake city. the government has worked to cut the wood stoves, but the oil and natural gas refineries. how can utah get a breath of fresh air? joining us is bryce bird, the director of air quality for utah's environmental quality. and a utah non-profit environmental group. jarod hanson is a professor at brigham young university. and she started an organization

called "athletes for air." and welcome it all of you. so matt, when people think of utah, they think of the clear blue sky, and the mountain snow. and chris call clear parks, and how serious is the air pollution problem. >> on any day in winter, it's extremely serious. depending on the weather patterns, we get levels of part why pollution, that can buildup to be the worst in america, and we have decades of research about the affects of the fine particles. theyboro deep into your lungs, and they are serious for folks with breathing disorders, and the elderly. and there are disturbing suggestions that they might play a role in autism to depression, to low birth weight. >> but jarad, if it's only a

handful of days, as matt mentioned, what is there to worry about. >> it is a handful of days, and mostly in the wintertimes when we have these inversions, but even with the handful of days, the pollution levels can be so high, and just like matt talked about, it gets hard to breathe, and it aggravates people's as montasthma, and premature deathn some issues, and it's a serious issue, even if it happens for only a couple of days. >> and we know enough about health issues, lisa, if you're carrying a baby, it can deliver a shock to the feet us that can be severe, so the fact that it's only a few days is not a reason to keep it from ever happening. >> what makes it so bad to begin with? >> the inversions, usually we have snow on the valley floor,

and then it's trapped under the lid. and the chemistry changes in those, and it builds up until a storm comes out to clean us out. >> the community is talking about the impact that it's having on local utahans: i have this great video comment from neil. >> i created the twitter box because i wanted to broadcast whether or not i wanted to be outdoors. i'm a cyclist and there's nothing more frustrating to stay indoors because of the air quality. it was picked up by recreational

and professional cyclists, as well as a handful of news outlets. >> talk to us about the impact that the air pollution is having on the communities. >> well, there's a huge impact on communities, from athletes to future athletes, especially with our kids. but currently, utah is home to 40% of the winter olympic athletes that competed in vancouver in 2010. and as part of the athlete's training regimens, a lot of us train outdoors, and as a professional cyclist myself, and as an avid skier, i ride my bike a lot. but the impact on the community doesn't just prevent us from training, but it prevents us from working together as a community, from training together and interacting, because on the red air days, and on the days where it says it's recommended for sensitive groups not to expose themselves, those are the days that athletes

should not train outside because of our increased oxygen consumption. they limit our interaction with the community and limit our ability to train. and because of that, i know athletes, and friends actually that have left the state, or they're talking about leaving the state. and for me, as a cyclist, that's one of the reasons that i helped to cofound athletes for clean air, and it's part of the reason i have looked at leaving the state. >> jarod, for people who don't have a good grasp on this, and it's pretty much all of this, talk about in as basic terms possible, why the particulates are so dangerous. they're 1/20 of the size of a human harr hair? >> they're so small, they're 2 on the 5 microns or smaller.

it's much smaller than the width of a human hair, and because they're so small, our bodies don't have great defense mechanisms, and when you have the small particles, they can lodge deep into your lungs, and they can get into your bloodstream because they're so small, and all sorts of problems with occur at that point. >> and quickly, if i can interject, sorry, lisa. >> sure, go ahead. >> it's true that it's smaller than the human red blood cell, is that correct? is that why it so easily invades the human body? >> it gets so deep into your lungs, and our bodies don't have good defense mechanisms. something of that nature. it's larger and doesn't have the capability of getting so deep down into our lungs, and we can couple of it out or sneeze it out. and it's 2.5, and gets so deep

into our lungs is what causes the problems. >> matt, you are part of the environmental group, and the environment in utah is a big draw for tourism, it's a big money maker for the state, $8 billion a year, and at what point does it affect the tourism in utah. >> i would say that it's having a significant impact on development. the mountain west is one of the significant parts of the economy, but a lot of that growth are from businesses that the be here and expand here, and it's a great and beautiful place to live. you're half an hour from world class skiing, and three hours from gorgeous red rock country, and salt lake city and the valleys are where you want to live. it's where your kids want to go to school and your spouse is going to find a job, but you end

up in every year in beijing like funk, and it's driving folks away and it's aving our job hiring. we hear regularly from jeff edwards, and he says that his biggest fear is he's going to have some fortune 500 executive coming to utah thinking about signing that facility here, and the day that personnize in, he's going to fly into the funk, and it's having a big impact. >> speaking of beijing-like funk, a lot of our community has something to say:

>> well, matt brought up this industry and affecting development. and that's what we'll talk about next. the politics of policy. and even the epa is critical of how utah is handling it's pollution crisis, and how the state senate just rejected a bill that might be able to do something about it. did you know that you can prer act with our show on your smart phone or tablet. check this out.

>> welcome back. we're talking about utah and it's very high levels of air pollution that in fact rival los angeles. bryce, the state legislature failed to pass a bill that would put more teeth in the current standards, and i realize ta you're not on the policy making end of this, but why do you think that there was that push back, when pretty much everybody agrees that the air in utah needs improvement. >> the legislator is in session for a month, and they have provisions that are up for discussion. when it comes to air pollution, there are two big components, one is that you have a plan to address it, and you're making improvements, and the best time to do that is in the past. we have a long history of addressing air pollution in our area, and we're building on that past effort. and on that note, the one

comparison that's invalid is comparing us to beijing, for instance. our worst days are about like their average days, and so we're talking about hundreds of days difference. and with our particular problem, of course los angeles violence the standards about 100 days a year, and we're talking about eight days a year. the rest of the year, we have good air quality, and so on the annual, average, we do very well, and as mentioned, the rest of the state is beautiful. and certainly isn't impacted by this inversion urban situation. >> the epa is taking a concern with utah. and they said:

so i took a letter, bryce, that was addressed to you from the epa and what are some of those concerns that they're itemizing? >> really, this is in response to an 1800 page plan that we provided to them. so the comments will be addressed. mostly they're technical when it comes to the strategies that have been implemented. and they helped us develop those. so i think that again, we expected some comments back, and we'll be addressing those as part of the provisions to the plan, and it's part of our process with the environmental protection agency. >> is utah dragging it's feet when it comes to this issue. >> i think so. and to go back to what bryce said, a few days a year, or beijing or los angeles, hundreds of days a year, it's not actually a correct statement. i don't believe that it's a

correct statement to say that the rest of the year our air is great. in fact, it's not. our high levels of ozone, as a mountain biker who is outside frequently. it's a problem. because while i am not hacking up the content of the cold weather inversion, i'm still suffering, and other people in the valley because of the high levels of ozone that are created by the docs, and it's not fair to place blame on any one industry, and a lot of people are looking to place blame, but instead of placing blame, we should be looking at thelution solutions to the unique problems in utah. >> amanda, here's a solution:

speaking about precedent. should utah politicians tighten up here when it comes to regulation, and should industry be made a scapegoat? >> i think that scapegoat is too strong a word. but the truth is that it requires sacrifice from a wide array to sectors, and people who drive the cars being willing to pay more for gas, and refineries, and copper mines being willing to put in the best pollution control technologies. i think that they do a good job, but we have a population expected to double in the next

30-40 years, and we're all living in this valley ringed by mountains. and we need a bold vision, and it needs to cu come from the vey top. from the governor to the leaders, and we're going to have to put billions of dollars into a bus network to feed the light rail that we have. and think carefully about the zoning and planning stuff. do we want to sprawl and sprawl and sprawl, or do we want an amazing city for tomorrow built around transit development and all of that stuff. so we're doing good on the small stuff, but bryce's staff is good at their jobs, but we need big vision from the very top to remake utah. >> matt is right. he mentioned that word, invest, and this is an investment in our future, in utah's future, for everybody, it's an investment in sustainable and profitable

economics, and that's exactly what it is. it's an investment. and we need it look at it as an investment in utah. >> bryce, how do you see that translating to getting traction in the legislature? they passed a law that says utah continue have its environmental standards exceed what the federal minimum is. and it seems there's already a feeling within the legislature that they don't want to go any farther than they have to on environmental quality for the state. >> it's one of the many challenges that we have. and i think that the answer to that, and the solution has been uprising. and that is the community outreach to bring it to the elected officials, and we have seen that this year. we have seen one or two air quality bills in the legislature, and now we're over

20. and it's a reflection of the interest, and the focus of that grassroots effort to bring the attention to what it needs to be. >> the community here: >> coming up, if the air stays dirty. i guess we're going to weigh in on the long-term consequences of pollution after the break.

>> we have an air quality problem here. >> what are you going to do

today to help the air quality? >> welcome back. utah has some of the worst air quality in the country. where millions of tourists go every year to enjoy outdoor recreation. so jarod, we talked about the impacts of the air musician in n the show, and how it impacts pregnant moms and others, but has enough research been done about the long-term health consequences? >> another good question, lisa so there have been some of the studies done by some of my colleagues at brigham young university. they don't specifically look at the quality of air in utah, about you particularly people living in the los angeles basin trying to show those studies, but there are been studies about the affects of living in polluted air. >> bryce, you have deadlines

that you have to meet coming up in the next five years, and talk about the likelihood of that. >> so again, we have a long history of developing the plans that meet the standards. epa's process is to make is more productive overtime. and this is the next part of that process, and again, we're very confident that the strategies that we have in place, while costly, will be effective, but it's not the end. we need to focus on getting all of the sectors to reduce their emissions, and growth will be a huge factor for us, and we're determined to find how that's going to be in the future. >> bryce, if you had one thing to focus on, in terms of being a major polluter in the next five years, what would you put your finger on? >> it's so hard to get people out of that single occupant vehicle, whether it's transportation, or working, or education and avoiding it during

those days. >> the community is tuning in. less: amanda, i don't want to end this on a despondent note. what can regular citizens do to make proactive solutions here to make sure that the air is breathable and better in 2019? >> there's so much we can do, and that's a big part of our campaign. personal responsibility. whether it's from calling your

legislators, from calling people that you elected your jobs, to turning down the heat in your home, to driving less, and not idling at your children's school, and not taking one person up the canyon to go skiing over the weekend. not burning wood, that's an obvious one. taking public transheit, and encouraging your friends and family. and often types, it makes a huge difference 23 you just say something. >> matt, amanda just mentioned public transportation, and that's something that has to be funded by tax dollars, and is there the lil will to do that in utah. >> we have to reconcile the conflict between utah's business regulated friendly state, with you our leaders are proud of,

and the place that's colliding of the realities of a heavily urbanized valley ringed by mountains. and the big question for utah in the next decade or works what kind of future are we going to build? are we going to build a jewel in the mountains that attracts people who want to live with progressive businesses or are we going to slide down the hill to overly urbanized, smog-filled valleys? and it's a tough question to answer well, but i'm optimistic. like bryce said, we have great stuff coming from the legislature. and we have a governor taking on this issue more than he ever has before in recent weeks, and dedicated professionals looking at it. i'm optimistic, and we have to make tough decisions. >> jarod, from a science perspective, what do you want to see happen in the next couple of years. >> about 75% of the particulate

matter, that's when we get in trouble with the federal government, comes from emissions from cars. and so like bryce has talked about, we're aware of where the sources are coming from, but the biggest piece is to try to take cars off of the road. so we need a robust mass transit system. it's going to take sacrifices. we'll have to want to take the bus to get to work, and it's going to require individual sacrifices for utah as. >> what does success for utah look like to you? >> it means that the state of sports needs to be the state of sports, and instead of giving industry free rein, we need to enforce it on everyone. >> thank you to everyone. until next time, raj and i will see you online at aljazeera.com/ajamstream. see you tomorrow.

>> and evening, everyone. and welcome to aljazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. kiev is burning. tensions between protesters in ukraine have reached a boiling point. lives are lost on both side, and we'll take you there live. >> . >> sister sentence. why an 84-year-old wants to spend the rest of her life behind bars. surveillance, those lights are not just helping you see, but helping others see you. and school spanking. ns