Davis County updates emissions requirements

FARMINGTON — Fees for annual vehicle emissions inspections are likely to go up slightly, following the passage of updated Davis County ordinances.

Davis County commissioners approved ordinance changes recently to the county's vehicles code in an effort to cut vehicle pollution in commute-heavy Davis County.

The updated ordinance increases the fee service stations pay to perform emissions inspections from $25 to $50.

And it increases the maximum price stations can charge customers for inspections from $25 to $27.50.

That brings the maximum stations can charge in line with the state-allowed maximum, said Lewis Garrett, director of the Davis County Health Department.

The county's certificate of compliance charge also goes up, from $2.25 to $2.75.

For gasoline vehicles, the air pollution control fee has gone up to $3 from $2, but for diesel vehicles, the fee is down to $3 from $10.

The opacity allowance for diesel vehicles has also been changed.

For engines from 1996 and newer the exhaust opacity, or degree to which exhaust obscures the view, can be no more than 20 percent. The previous ordinance allowed 70 percent.

For engines from 1995 or older, the allowance is 40 percent. And for heavy-duty engines, 55 percent opacity is allowed for vehicles from 1995 and older until January 2010.

"It's not unattainable," Garrett said. "Diesel trucks are much cleaner than they used to be."

The fee increases are expected to bring in $177,100 to purchase some air monitoring equipment and to shore up the health department's undercover audit program, which officials use to make sure proper inspections are being done.

"There's not a lot of fraud," Garrett said. "But there is some and some incompetence."

The ordinance for gas vehicles was last updated in 2002, and the ordinance for diesel vehicles was last updated in 1996, Garrett said.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com

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