Living Well With Diabetes

The air quality in the Salt Lake City area has been very bad recently. If you happened to look at the AirNow.gov web site yesterday, the five cities with the worst air quality in the nation were all in Utah. Today? Utah is doing better. Just one city in the “Worst Five” list today, but of the six cities with “Air Action” alerts in the nation, four of them are in Utah. Local air quality monitoring agencies announce an “Air Action” day when air quality index gets into unhealthy ranges.

In Salt Lake City, just like many other urban areas in the United States, the major component of air pollution is particulate matter, especially fine particulates or PM2.5 which are particulates measuring 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. The sources of particulate matter are numerous, natural and man-made, but the major source is the combustion of fuels. For example, cars, trucks, factories, wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. Most urban areas in Utah (I’m thinking of Provo, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Logan here) have an unusual geographic feature which helps accumulate pollutants and keeps them on the “Worst Five” air quality list during the winter: they’re surrounded by mountains. This allows for a meteorological condition called a temperature inversion.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve started commuting by bicycle and air quality is one of reasons — driving less is the top suggestion for how citizens can help improve the air quality wherever they live. But, until last year, I wouldn’t ride my bicycle outside when Salt Lake City experienced a temperature inversion and the air quality dropped. Then, a friend introduced me to the idea of riding with a NIOSH-approved N95 mask like this one. Worn properly, it filters out 100% of particulates down to about 1 micrometer. It provides no protection against other contaminants like ozone, sulfur oxides, and carbon monoxide, but these are generally well within national air quality standards during winter months in Salt Lake City. So I bought myself a handful of these masks to wear when the air quality drops and I have been able to commute regardless of the PM2.5 levels.

It took an adjustment in my riding though. I quickly learned to ride moderately — no sprint work — when wearing one of these things because they do restrict breathing a bit. If I go too hard, I’m rewarded by about 20 seconds of feeling like I’m going to suffocate. Not very fun.

With the inconvenience of a mask (and studded snow tires and winter-weight clothing), I sometimes ask myself why do I continue to commute by bicycle when the air quality is dropping into unhealthy regions? Then I remember I’m not riding despite the dirty air, I’m riding because of it.

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