Tooele residents explain frustration with Inland Port

“Tooele County moving forward with 2 inland port projects despite resident concerns,” a December, 2023 headline wrote.

Following suit with their 2018 approval of an Inland Port in Utah’s capitol city, despite outspoken residents, some of whom even faced arrests during protests, the Utah Inland Port once again decided to move into a neighborhood they weren’t wanted, or needed.

Tooele Valley Inland Port project area, arial photo by Xiangya-Axe-Tang.

The Tooele project areas threaten over 700 acres of currently rural and beautiful land, including Great Salt Lake wetlands. “Who wants that in their backyard? We’re not an industrial community. We’re not even really a suburb community – we’re a rural community,” Kyle Matthews, Tooele resident and Stop the Polluting Port activist said in an article for Great Salt Lake Collaborative.

Kyle Matthews on his property near one of the Tooele project areas, photo by Xiangyao-Axe-Tang.

“[This project] kind of defeats the purpose of coming out here. It’s a neighborhood street, and it’s not going to be a neighborhood street anymore,” another resident, Bryson Anderson, was quoted in the article.

Tooele resident speaking against Inland Port development before they voted to approve it.

Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a group of news, education and media organizations who have come together to highlight issues impacting Great Salt Lake, asked UPHE to weigh in on the Inland Port’s threat, “Jonny Vasic, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, said his concerns about the Utah inland port projects stem from the small number of environmental assessments, human health risk assessments and west-side assessments.”

“Vasic said, regardless of the specifics of how bad the environmental impacts are, one thing is for sure—’there is no such thing as a clean port.’

“Any port that’s ever come in increases diesel pollution by a great deal because more trucks are coming and going, increased noise pollution, … increased light pollution,” Vasic said. “All of those things have health risks associated with them.”

“The thing that upsets me is that there hasn’t seemed to be a concern for what the people most affected in the community care about,” Teri Durfee said in the article. Photo by Xiangya-Axe-Tang.

A report activists and experts compiled on all of the inland port project areas found that 7,000 acres of Great Salt Lake wetlands are being eyed for industrial development.

Find the Stop the Polluting Port’s report on how the Inland Port threatens wetlands here.

Two of the developers seeking to make a profit from industrial development in Tooele County have relatives who are elected officials – State Representative Bridger Bolinder, and Josh Romney, son of US Senator Mitt Romney.

Information from the Stop the Polluting Port website on what residents can still do:

Contact members of the Grantsville City Council:
Two Council Members – Jewel Allen and Jolene Jenkins, specifically asked about voting to withdraw their support for the Grantsville Inland Port in the future. They were told they could do that.

So let’s ask the Grantsville City Council not to support this boondoggle benefiting a few private business interests at the expense of quality of life and health in Grantsville, Tooele County and northern Utah. There is certainly no need to rush. Warn them about the Salt Lake City and County experience – we’re five and a half years into an “inland port” and what is being built is a giant polluting warehouse district.

Here are their email addresses:
Jewel Allen jallen@grantsvilleut.gov
Scott Bevan – sbevan@grantsvilleut.gov
Jeff Hutchins – jhutchins@grantsvilleut.gov
Jolene Jenkins – jjenkins@grantsvilleut.gov
Darrin Rowberry – drowberry@grantsvilleut.gov