"Better than a thousand hollow words," the Buddha once said, "is one word that brings peace."

But among the thousands of words in the 194 pages of Utah's air quality rules, one word -- "not" -- is wreaking all kinds of minor havoc.

The Utah Air Quality Board is accepting public comments and has scheduled a public hearing in order to delete the word "not" from the first sentence of rule R307-130-4.

That rule permits fines to be waived if an air quality violator makes improvements that reduce emissions more than what's required.

As it reads now, however, it says fines can be set aside for "emissions reductions beyond those not required to meet existing requirements."

And that makes no sense, said environmental program manager David McNeill: "It almost makes it so that people can't do something if they don't do things that they don't have to do."

Agency rules must be reviewed every five years, and during the most recent review that word stuck out.

Previous versions of the rule didn't contain that thorny "not."

"It somehow or another got put in there, and we can't even tell how it happened," McNeill said.

Sometimes rules can be changed administratively, without the need for hearings and comments. But the state Attorney General's office advised them to jump through all the hoops.

"Because we're changing the meaning of the rule from nonsensical to sensical, we have to go through the formal process," McNeill said.

The hearing will be at 2 p.m. April 18 at the Department of Environmental Quality, 150 N. 1950 West in Salt Lake City. It's not expected to take long.

You also can submit comments until 5 p.m. on May 1. Send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or to: Richard Sprott, Attn: R307-130-4 Options, Utah Division of Air Quality, P.O. Box 144820, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-4820.

Alan Choate can be reached at 344-2556 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it