By Joseph M. Dougherty

Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 11:31 p.m. MDT

FARMINGTON — About 15 Davis County vehicles are now equipped with transmitters that measure their efficiency.

From a boardroom in Farmington, the Davis County Board of Health watched as Chris Smith tracked data on vehicles that passed by a sensor in Kaysville just off I-15.

One of the vehicles had a check-engine light on.

Normally, that light would cause the vehicle to fail its annual emissions inspection. But here it is, driving up and down the freeway, potentially adding extra pollution to the air.

That's not good news in Davis County, which is among the handful of Wasatch Front counties that are out of compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standards for ozone and particulate matter 2.5 microns in size. Utah is required to implement a plan to reduce those pollutants, both of which come from combustion in vehicle engines.

Fortunately, this is just a test. The vehicle is rigged to fail so the Davis County Health Department can check emissions inspectors' operations.

But there's a good chance that many of the vehicles that drive through Davis County every day could be emitting extra pollutants.

So the county has contracted with Murray-based SysTech International, where Smith is the vice president of operations, to run a pilot program involving about 100 transmitters in county vehicles.

The transmitters are plugged into an onboard diagnostics, or OBD II, chip in vehicles built after 1995.

The OBD chip records a vehicle's emission data, which testing centers download when the vehicle has its annual checkup.

The transmitters constantly broadcast that emission data, effectively making sure the vehicle is always being tested. And once the OBD catches a problem, the transmitter sends the data to the county, which can notify the vehicle owner that the car needs to be checked.

Health-department director Lewis Garrett said he's confident the technology is robust, but the heavy questions will come once his department begins planning how the transmitters could be implemented for private vehicles. That should be in 18 months to two years, he said.

Garrett said he doesn't imagine that the county, in the future, will be totally reliant on the transmitters to test cars. But he predicts that service stations that may lose business for vehicle inspections may gain more business, because more polluting vehicles will be caught and will need repairs sooner.

Smith said SysTech hopes to reach an agreement with Fruit Heights officials to install a receiver on some city property to capture emission data on U.S. 89. He also plans to send a mobile hot spot to circulate in Davis County.