New False Narrative from the Port Authority
The Utah Inland Port Authority has a new and false narrative: that the port will actually clean up our air and reduce the supply chain bottleneck at West Coast ports.
1. There is currently no “inland port” in Utah. The only inland port that exists is several new, massive warehouses. No actual inland port infrastructure actually exists now, and will not be in service for years to come, so to the extent the current supply chain issue can be mitigated by shipping goods to Utah has nothing to do with building an inland port.
2. Shipping more goods to Utah will not clean up our air. If trains are utilized more from the West Coast, that may reduce pollution in California and Nevada, but it certainly won’t in Utah because all those goods that arrive by train will have to be moved on to trucks in Salt Lake City. More goods offloaded for secondary distribution at SLC means more trucks and trains in SLC which means both more truck and train pollution.
3. Studies have shown that shipping goods by train doesn’t mean less pollution compared to trucks. In fact, Union Pacific uses the oldest, dirtiest, diesel engines there are for their train locomotives, and those actually produce more NOx per ton of freight moved compared to trucks. California may be able to export some of their shipping and traffic congestion to Utah, but they will also be exporting their pollution and traffic congestion to Utah whether it’s by train or truck.
