Enviros challenge scope of project
By Taylor Stevens | Salt Lake City Tribune ·
Even under their best-case scenarios, opponents of Utah’s inland port — which has been billed as the state’s largest-ever economic development project — say it will likely worsen air quality and damage the Great Salt Lake’s already fragile ecosystem.
Without an environmental impact study, it’s hard to say what, exactly, the effects could be of the planned 20,000-acre distribution hub in Salt Lake City’s westernmost area, which is expected to bring increased rail, truck and air traffic along with tailpipe emissions.
Advocates point out that, even without the port, the state has struggled to meet federal limits for ozone, an airborne pollutant that is particularly harmful to children. And it will likely miss a critical 2019 federal deadline for meeting air-quality standards.
“The inland port, I mean… it doesn’t even exist right now, and we’re still having these challenges,” said Jessica Reimer, a policy associate with the nonprofit environmental advocacy group HEAL Utah.
That’s also without taking into consideration a projected boom of 1.5 million new people in the state by 2050 — which means more people driving cars and creating emissions.
“A lot of our emissions come from just our day to day, you know, just living our lives,” Reimer said. “And so we just don’t have a whole lot of room to fully increase the manufacturing and truck traffic that would potentially be generated from the inland port.”
