Changes to county emissions program not what some people think

Last week,  Josh Greer, environmental health scientist for the Bear River Health Department, made a presentation to the Cache County Council about amending the vehicle emissions and maintenance program. The change, that takes effect in 2021, will mean the end to the tail-pipe emissions testing program, which alarmed some that the county was perhaps discontinuing testing for emissions overall. On KVNU’s For the People program on Monday, Greer explained what the change really means.

“We’re not moving away from emissions testing. Tailpipe testing is only one type of emissions testing that we’ve been performing but the vast majority of our testing has actually been through OBD testing or, to put simply, communicating with the vehicle’s on-board computer,” explained Greer.

Tail pipe inspections have been performed on older vehicles, such as 1995 and older, and on some heavier vehicles. Greer said one of the reasons for the change is the cost factor for testing stations. They have to maintain a machine that measures pollution coming out of a tailpipe for a handful of vehicles compared to being relatively inexpensive to plug into a vehicle computer to get a reading. Greer said with technology getting better in all facets of vehicle manufacturing, the emissions are cleaner than they have ever been.

Audio:  Josh Greer of BRHD talks with For the People host Jason Williams

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