Company should listen to the public on proposed Parley’s mine
Too often individual interests trump public health and common sense in environmental battles. Nowhere is that more the case than with the Parley’s Canyon gravel pit.
Predictably, the property owner, Jesse Lassley, and his ironically named company “Tree Farm,” has filed suit to force Salt Lake County to allow the destruction of Parley’s Canyon with his proposed enormous gravel pit. Some variation of this same grotesquely selfish attitude of “anything for a buck” is behind the Inland Port, the dredging/fantasy island proposal going on at Utah Lake, the Uinta Basin Railway, the Bear River Project, and of course the eagerness of all the dirty energy corporations to help us commit climate suicide.
Challenging the widely supported ordinance passed by the Council to block the mine is a show of flagrant disrespect for the people’s interest. A mine in Parley’s Canyon is sure to increase pollution, much from dust, which is already an increasingly threatening issue for Wasatch Front residents due to the drought.
The legal standing for Tree Farm’s lawsuit comes from HB288, a 2019 bill that “bars counties and municipalities from restricting the mining or processing of sand, gravel and other “critical infrastructure materials.” the Salt Lake Tribune writes. Mayor Jenny Wilson is confident that the Council acted within its rights to pass the ordinance blocking the mine, however.
We have run out of the luxury of allowing people to selfishly monetize, exploit, and destroy the assets and resources that should belong to all of us–our air, land, water, and climate. Allowing this to continue will be the demise of quality of life along the Wasatch Front. UPHE will remain engaged in fighting this attempt to destroy Parley’s Canyon for money as long as it takes.
