Legal petition filed to try and stop Tooele rail line and protect wetlands
In March, 2024, the Surface Transportation Board (a federal agency responsible for freight rail regulation), approved a freight line through Tooele County.
UPHE, along with concerned local residents, filed a petition for the Surface Transportation Board to reconsider their approval. Our opposition to the rail line is based on the pivotal role the rail line would play in accelerating the development of two industrial parks, sponsored by the Utah Inland Port and threatening wetlands.
“This kind of massive warehouse and industrial development has overwhelmed communities in other states, and the residents have nicknamed these developments ‘diesel death zones,’ because of all the pollution that comes with them,” UPHE’s Dr. Brian Moench was quoted in a Utah News Dispatch article.
The developers’ own projections cite that industrialization would attract tens of thousands of diesel trucks and other vehicles per day. The traffic and pollution from all these trucks and vehicles would completely transform the bucolic environment of Tooele’s newest city, Erda, into a heavy industrial zone, ruining their quality of life. And much of that traffic would spill into the Salt Lake Valley and the rest of the Wasatch Front, adding pollution, traffic congestion, and more pressure and maintenance costs on Wasatch Front freeways.
Our petition is based on concerns about omissions from the review process. Utah News Dispatch writes, “The assessment doesn’t completely evaluate harms to biological resources, according to the petition. It also fails to accurately disclose the project’s purpose and effects. Those omissions include the considerations of rail needs from the Inland Port Authority project areas, the industrial parks and other manufacturing sites.”
See our press release on the petition ⇩