Is Salt Lake City prioritizing warehouses over farms, homes and habitat for the Great Salt Lake?
Thanks to everyone who showed up last week and testified before the Salt Lake City Planning Commission in opposition to another mini-inland port warehouse farm in North Salt Lake. Almost all the speakers opposed it, and the commissions voted to table the proposal, 7 to 1. This battle is not over, but this is a good start. Resident involvement is crucial in this battle to protect our quality of life.
UPHE’s testimony:
“Regarding the air pollution consequences of this decision, the baseline exposure of everyone on the Wasatch Front includes the winter inversion pollution we’re all familiar with, high ozone in the summer for multiple reasons, including gradually hotter temperatures from the climate crisis, wildfire pollution often lasting for months in the summer and early fall, and periodic dust suspended from the Great Salt Lake lakebed. Research estimates the human health cost of all that pollution may be up to 8,000 premature deaths in Utah every year, an average loss of life expectancy of about 2 years, and higher rates of the following: virtually every type of lung disease, heart and blood vessel disease, impaired brain development and decreased cognition and memory, neurologic diseases like Alzheimer’s, neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, transgenerational chromosomal damage, impaired fetal development, every type of poor pregnancy outcome including stillbirths and birth defects, cancer, and more.
In addition to all that, the area of proposed rezone is exposed to much more. Dust from the Beck St. gravel pit, pollution from the oil refineries and all the trucks associated with them, the traffic from I-15 and legacy highways, and UDOT plans a massive expansion of that freeway, and pollution from the airport which is also slated for expansion. If you now add to all that, pollution from hundreds of diesel trucks going in and out of each one of these warehouses, the only conclusion is this: you have created a new pollution nightmare on top of an existing pollution nightmare. Where these warehouse farms have been created in other states, the nickname they are now known by is “diesel death zones.” And that is exactly what they are. If city leaders approve this, that is what they have created.”
A Salt Lake Tribune article quoted our partners on the Stop the Polluting Port’s (STPP) message on the rezone proposal “It’s outrageous that Salt Lake City is proposing another warehouse district, which will further degrade our air quality with polluting warehouse development, when dust from the drying Great Salt Lake is increasingly threatening to human health.”
STPP also released a petition against the proposal that gained over 1,200 signatures in just a few days.
Polluting industries’ favorite argument for projects that threaten the quality of life in the area was raised by supporters – new jobs. This argument ignores Utah’s impressively low unemployment rate, and ignores the pending increase in warehouse jobs from the Utah Inland Port. Councilwoman Victoria Petro-Eschler, who represents the area, was quoted in a previous Tribune article expressing concerns over the types of jobs being created not warranting this large of a change and investment.
Even Utah Inland Port leadership has spoken out against the proposed rezone. “Residents on the west side of Salt Lake City have had a disproportionate concentration of these facilities built in their area… and by doing so harms the environment, the economy and the quality of life for city residents,” the Port executive director, somewhat ironically, wrote to the planning commission.
We urge residents to stay tuned in to this proposal for the area. We have a real opportunity with such attention on the issue to craft a future for the valley that residents are excited and proud of.