DOGE killed a potentially life-saving Utah air quality project. Could the Legislature step in?

The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah News Dispatch.

In 2024 clean air advocates had high hopes that a $1 million EPA grant could help communities understand how toxic the air in their neighborhoods can be and would install life-saving radon systems in at-risk homes across the state.

But then the grant got DOGE’d.

In terms of federal grants the funding was small, but the impact would have been big. The grant sought to buy and deploy dozens of air quality devices in at-risk communities to provide real-time alerts about air pollution. These devices were set to be deployed in west-side communities in Salt Lake City and the county, but also in rural counties and tribal communities that had no existing air monitors. The grant also sought to conduct widespread radon testing and install hundreds of radon mitigation systems in at-risk homes and schools across the state.

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When President Donald Trump’s cost-saving crusade was taken up by billionaire Elon Musk, the grant was one of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s early victims. By the time the grant was canceled in the spring of 2025 the state had spent just over $140,000 of its $1 million. Sixteen radon mitigation devices had been put in place but there was no more funding to install hundreds more that had been planned. Radon testing had been conducted at only 20% of the schools in the grant objective.

At the moment the grant was canceled the Utah Department of Environmental Quality had also already purchased 101 low-cost air quality sensors and had them calibrated and ready to go. 

The University of Utah and Snow College stepped in to try and deploy the devices. The University of Utah mounted the sensors to 48 monitors, but so far only 16 have been deployed.

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has not requested funding to fill in the gaps in its budget presentations during the current legislative session, but DEQ spokesperson David Noriega said the agency is still exploring options.

“We are looking into other funding streams, but haven’t yet confirmed anything,” Noriega said.

In a separate statement Bryce Bird, director of the Division of Air Quality, stressed that the work is continuing.

“We are not letting this high-tech equipment sit on a shelf,” Bird said. “By partnering with our state universities, we are finding innovative ways to get these monitors into the field where they can provide actionable data for our communities, despite the loss of this federal grant.”

While universities are working to pick up the slack with air monitors, the loss of funding halted the widespread radon testing and installation of potentially life-saving mitigation devices. It also means plans for real-time air quality alerts in at-risk neighborhoods have been scaled back and are still in question. 

A big part of the funding was also coordinating a broad public outreach campaign to get residents signed up for air quality alerts. These alerts would not only let families know if it was safe for their kids to play outside but would help them understand the risks affecting their neighborhoods. The grant had aimed to unite a broad coalition of different community groups for the effort, but that collaboration also has been halted. 

Dorothy Owen is a former community council chair for the Westpointe neighborhood on Salt Lake City’s west side and has been involved in numerous discussions with legislators about industrial projects’ impact on air quality on the west side. She said the state Legislature should step up now that the federal government has bowed out of the grant.

“The idea that all this work to get the grant and all the work and time that was done and they don’t follow through? It’s really ineffective and wasteful,” Owen said. “If the Utah Legislature has always believed they can do better than the federal government, why aren’t they following up?”

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, represents the capital’s west side. She said more testing and education about air quality should be a priority for her fellow lawmakers.

“I definitely 100% agree the Legislature should step up and fund it, the question is will we?” Romero asked.

‘Abundant nearby pollution sources’

As part of the grant the state partnered with local health departments and other agencies like the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. A document outlining DHHS’s role in the project explained the unique risks faced in Utah by air quality problems and how they could be addressed by the grant.

“By adding low-cost PM 2.5 and PM 10 and ozone sensors that provide the communities with near real-time air quality map visualizations and instant air quality alerts, the project will empower local residents and community groups to make more informed decisions about their health,” the DHHS grant document states.

PM2.5, the nasty and incredibly small particulate matter that is often found in vehicle exhaust and industrial smoke and soot has long been a problem on the west side. But the new monitors would also provide more data on PM10, which often comes in the form of dust, as well as ozone pollution.

Romero said the state could and should find funding to help fully implement the project and bring greater education to residents about how bad the air is in their neighborhoods.

“It’s really important for people to educate themselves,” Romero said. They need information on “when you should be outside, when you should wear an inversion mask, when you can exercise outside because you can be putting your health at risk.”

And that data is important for all neighborhoods of Salt Lake City.

“The air we breathe is not the same even in Salt Lake City,” Romero added. “The farther west you are, the closer we are to freeways and industry, the dirtier it is.”

Nancy Daher is an associate professor in the division of occupational and environmental health at the University of Utah’s school of medicine, and oversaw the projects. She agrees that the monitors are important because specific neighborhoods will have different qualities of air.

“Particulate matter and ozone levels are not the same from one neighborhood to another,” Daher said. “You have local neighborhood sources that can make some neighborhoods experience higher pollution levels than others.”

She said the university was luckily able to use other grants meant to address air quality on the west side to work toward deploying the air monitors. 

New monitors are key in showing vulnerable communities day-to-day risks, but also to know how to advocate for themselves, she added.

“It’s not just raising awareness on air quality and how bad it is but also giving communities the tools to allow them to take action,” Daher said. 

The DHHS grant document acknowledges that the Salt Lake Valley’s west side communities are in some of the most toxic locations with “abundant nearby pollution sources.”

“These communities are in close proximity to major roadways, railyards and industrial sources, including a large copper mine, several oil refineries, and the developing state’s Inland Port,” the document states.

The Department of Air Quality has a number of air monitors in the valley but Daher noted they are “sparsely located.” More sensors provide richer data, especially as the air quality can vary significantly depending on proximity to smokestacks or freeways.

The DHHS grant document also notes that existing monitors the state employs are not in the at-risk locations.

“Measurements are mostly available on the eastern side of the (Salt Lake Valley) and are not representative of pollution levels in (the valley’s) west quadrant,” the document reports. 

On the west side, residents’ “asthma-related hospital visit rates are much higher” and are in the worst locations in the state for PM2.5 and ozone, the document notes.

Daher said the plan to roll out real-time alerts and deploy the remaining monitors is a work in progress. Alerts will happen with help from another grant but Daher said the original grant would have expanded coverage “and made them more available to more communities.”

The effort was also undercut by the loss of the grant’s funding for widespread public engagement to get people signed up and connected to the data from the monitors.

“This project did have a community outreach component where we would work with local community organizations and some local health departments to help spread the word and make people aware of the tool we have available,” Daher said. “It never started.”

‘Immediate positive impact’

While university partners work to salvage plans for air monitors in rural and urban areas, radon mitigation efforts under the grant have effectively halted.

The need for radon testing and mitigation is particularly acute in targeted rural areas of the state that “have much higher rates of lung cancer,” according to the grant document, which also noted that radon exposure accounts for more than 14% of lung cancer incidences statewide.

Before grant funding was cut off, schools in Salt Lake and Carbon counties were tested for radon. But that left 80% of state schools untested.

Department of Environmental Quality’s Noriega noted, however, that school testing is a routine undertaking for the agency, just not at the same scale the grant had sought to accomplish.

“The most recent testing was for five schools in the San Juan School District. These tests are typically conducted during the coldest months-November through February. Testing will continue, but not in conjunction with this canceled grant,” Noriega said.

But the final report on the grant noted that radon mitigation stopped before potentially hundreds of the planned devices could be installed.

Noriega said Utah was one of only a few states in the nation to secure funding for radon mitigation.

“So when the funding was clawed back, the funding for low-income mitigation systems stopped. No other funding streams have materialized,” Noriega said. “However, we energetically continue the work of testing schools and educating communities when it comes to the dangers of radon.”

Daher said the loss of funding for mitigation systems was a loss of easy and life-saving wins for Utah communities. 

“It would have had an immediate positive impact,” Daher said. “When you mitigate for radon, that’s it — no more radon.”

Noriega said DEQ is open to funding solutions but already has many large appropriations priorities for the current legislative session, including improving regional haze and implementing a statewide dust observation research network, among other initiatives.

“The mission doesn’t change when a grant ends,” said Division of Air Quality director Bird. “We have 25 air quality monitoring stations statewide and a growing dust monitoring network that helps us understand the air quality needs of our state.”

Still, radon mitigation is an important but unfinished project in the state.

The final report on the grant’s progress noted that two day care centers that were tested had unsafe levels of radon but mitigation systems could not be installed.“We unfortunately now have no funding to support them, due to the grant termination,” the report states.

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