This month’s Partner Meeting we were joined by one of our own staff members, Emily Paskett, Program and Grants Manager for UCAIR, as well as Marisa Bomis, Director of Marketing for Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, and Bryce Bird, Director of Utah’s Division of Air Quality.

Emily reviewed the UCAIR Grants Program, including a historic view and what this year’s funding will focus on. Since 2013, UCAIR has awarded 89 grants through donor and sponsor funding and that has come to 1.8 million dollars going into community projects and programs to help reduce emissions and clear the air. The goal of the grants program is to reduce emissions of criteria pollutants that cause poor air quality. A few past successful projects include UTA-No charge transit passes for low-income individuals, Utah Municipal Power Agency, Spanish Fork and Provo-GreenXchange Program to swap out old lawnmowers for electric ones, Friends of Arches and Canyonlands-Outdoor lighting assistance program, and the Logan City-Gas golf cart replacement program. This year we have four main areas of interest:

1. Reduction of emissions from area sources that contribute to both wintertime inversion and summertime ozone seasons, including, but not limited to residential homes and commercial sources such as dry cleansers, print shops, gas stations and auto body paint shops.
2. Projects and programs specifically targeting summertime precursor emissions contributing to ozone pollution.
3. Programs utilizing emerging technologies that result in measurable emissions reductions.
4. Reduction of emissions in underserved areas:
5. Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
6. Areas of opportunity (geographic, industry, sector) that have not previously received equitable financial support.

The full Request for Proposals, RFP, the program timeline, and more information is available online at: ucair.org/grants. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at: grants@ucair.org or contact Emily directly at: emily@ucair.org

Marisa then reviewed the upcoming program: Clear the Air Challenge-Drive Down Your Miles. The Clear the Air Challenge is a month-long competition to drive down emissions by taking alternate transportation options like carpool, mass transit, active trans, telework, skip the trip, trip chain. Challenge began in 2017 and has morphed over time. In the past it has been held in the summer and winter months, depending on what the community wants. Participant feedback helps guide the challenge. 2022 Challenge Goals: This year our goals are to reduce 375 tons of CO2, eliminate 100,000 trips and save 2,000,000 miles with the focus on total emissions saved rather than miles saved like they were in the past. Challenge Results: Since the challenge has begun, it has eliminated 1.3 million trips, saved 18.9 million miles, reduced 6,341.4 tons of CO2 and saved 8 million dollars.

For more information about this year’s challenge and to register visit the website: cleartheairchallenge.org. For questions, contact us at: info@cleartheairchallenge.org

Bryce then updated the partners current air quality conditions. As the summer continues and we enter fire season there are a few ways to monitor these things through all our sensor networks. Fire.airnow.gov will give you a complete fire and smoke map and where these sensors are located.

We then held the partners roundtable-

Kelly Barrett, Utah Clean Cities: We have an event coming up on June 21^st at the Packsize facility to launch our Charge the West program.

Thomas Kessinger, Utah Clean Energy: Two updates- EPA funding opened for the clean school bus program and the second is a recent report on the emissions of new construction in the state.

Closing remarks – Kim Frost, UCAIR: We will not hold a partner meeting in July but will have one continuing in August. Also please see the Ozone pollution video here: https://youtu.be/SUOTyVN8N_g. I encourage you all to please share it with the community.