Lawsuit Challenges Utah Inland Port Authority as Unconstitutional
SALT LAKE CITY— Environmental and public advocacy groups sued Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and state legislative leaders today to challenge the Utah Inland Port Authority as unconstitutional under the state’s principle of separation of powers.
“This lawsuit aims to reverse the Utah Port Authority’s disastrous record of using public money to fast track massive industrial development that’s accelerating the collapse of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem,” said Deeda Seed, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, “The port authority and its board have consistently prioritized the interests of private developers over protecting people and the environment. There’s too high a cost to our fragile Great Salt Lake and the communities, plants and animals that depend on it.”
Today’s lawsuit, filed by Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity in Utah’s Third District Court, aims to reverse all board decisions since the legislature restructured the port authority’s leadership and created the board in 2022.
The lawsuit targets Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz for their roles in establishing the Utah Inland Port Authority’s current board. It also targets the port authority, saying it functions as an executive agency but is directly controlled by the Utah legislature, in violation of constitutionally mandated separation of powers.
“This is not just a technicality,” said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “The end result of this unconstitutional law has been the Utah Inland Port Authority flouting their statutory obligations to prioritize environmental and public health protection, and structuring their projects contrary to the public interest, and for the benefit of private developers. The public is paying the price from heavy industrialization and destruction of critical Great Salt Lake wetlands. They will continue to pay the price of more air pollution, dramatic increases in truck traffic and road congestion, more water siphoned from Great Salt Lake, and degraded quality of life up and down the Wasatch Front.”
Massive industrial development authorized and subsidized by the port authority is harming communities.
In Tooele County, the port authority is partnering with developers to fast track polluting development next to the healthiest portion of the Great Salt Lake, including a proposed wastewater treatment facility on the site of sensitive wetlands and bird habitat. In the city of Spanish Fork, the board has approved subsidies to Utah developers to accelerate industrial development in wetlands adjacent to Utah Lake. There has been little to no assessment of the projects’ risks to the environment or public health.
“We moved to Grantsville for the housing value and quiet, rural lifestyle. The Utah Inland Port Authority has ruined our lives,” said resident Macayla Anderson. “The project area has surrounded our house, our property value has plummeted, and the developer is not interested in buying us out, leaving our family financially insecure. We are already covered with constant construction dust. The way we have been treated has caused so much stress I have had to see a therapist and my breast milk has dried up for my new baby. The Utah Inland Port Authority board didn’t even allow me the opportunity to provide public comment before it voted to create the project area, even though I attended the meeting.”
“The Utah Inland Port Authority has already done a great deal of damage to our community,” said Tooele Valley resident Chris Eddington. “The port authority included my property and my neighbor’s property in their Tooele project area and didn’t even have the decency to tell me. It wasn’t until I attended the board meeting that I discovered my property was included in the project area without my consent. Our American dream of owning our own homes has been kicked down the street like we were nothing! And the fact that taxpayers are subsidizing all this makes it even worse.”
“Apparently, the Utah Inland Port Authority made no effort to ask the residents of Spanish Fork what they need or want,” said Jim Westwater, a 20-year resident of Spanish Fork. “This inland port project was done without our input or consent, and without any study to indicate whether it was needed or assess its potential harm to our health and the environment. Some people will make a lot of money off this inland port project, and that seems to be its main intent. It would be wrong to claim that this port project is going to do much more for us than degrade the health and quality of life of what is otherwise a pleasant, healthy, close-to-nature, family-friendly, well-run community.”