Utah has made headlines within the nationwide and worldwide press these days that haven’t precisely glorified “the Utah Means.” Typical was a NY Instances headline, “Because the Nice Salt Lake dries up, Utah Faces an ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb.’”
In little greater than every week I’ve been contacted by 4 reporters from nationwide information retailers — CBS, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Bloomberg, and Reuters — every pursuing tales on totally different environmental scourges in Utah. No shock that I acquired an e-mail from one more out-of-state household contemplating relocating to Utah.
They wrote, “We’ve heard horrible issues in regards to the air high quality in SLC resulting from many causes: inversion, wildfires, the Nice Salt Lake drying up and releasing arsenic and mercury into the ambiance, and so on. We’re most involved in regards to the well being of our daughter since she is taken into account delicate due to her age. If this have been your youngster would SLC be someplace you keep away from utterly or are there methods to nonetheless stay there and have an excellent high quality of life regardless of these points?”
Our physicians group fields different questions that ought to ship a chill up the backbone of each Utah legislator, reminiscent of: “Given air air pollution’s hurt to fetal improvement and long-term well being, are you able to suggest the most effective time to conceive a baby?” “Is it protected to conceive youngsters in Utah in any respect with this air air pollution?”
I’ll always remember telephone calls a number of years in the past from the spouse of one of the high-profile sports activities celebrities Utah has ever had, who was shifting to Utah from the East Coast. She requested for recommendation on the place she might buy a house the place their youngsters might breathe clear air as a result of she heard our air high quality was horrible. After two lectures I gave final week on environmental neurotoxins, among the many first questions requested have been about air air pollution from Utah’s inland port, although I hadn’t talked about the port in both case.
The self-congratulatory assumption of Utah’s enterprise elites and lawmakers that our state is well-run, household pleasant and admired by all obscures not solely the general public well being penalties of their environmental disregard, however the status and financial repercussions that include it. And all three are getting worse.
The anti-environmental cabal of extraction industries, land builders, building corporations and the Utah Division of Transportation have owned Utah’s Capitol Hill for many years. Sacrificing our air, water, public well being and high quality of life for enterprise revenue and relentless pursuit of the parable that inhabitants progress is inevitable, sacrosanct and may proceed indefinitely are primarily codified into state legislation. The disconnect between state legislation and our limits to progress has by no means been extra stark.
The jail transfer and the inland port have been born of state legislation that callously dismissed the worth of the Nice Salt Lake, and the affect of but extra air air pollution smothering the west aspect. Even on the wealthier east aspect, state legislation requires the Division of Environmental High quality to difficulty a allow for the proposed mine in Parley’s Canyon, by no means thoughts it could be a monstrous well being hazard reviled by everybody. The mine might but be stopped, however it is going to be no due to DEQ or the Legislature. In actual fact, the Legislature might mandate it.
The identical shall be true of US Magazine Corp’s utility to dig new canals to proceed syphoning off 100,000 gallons a minute of Nice Salt Lake water, regardless of the lake disappearing and the clear proof that complete ecosystem is already collapsing. It will likely be the identical story for Rio Tinto making use of for permits to increase into underground mining on the Bingham Pit, and for Geneva to increase their large gravel pit on the Level of the Mountain.
UDOT enjoys final authority to inflict its worth system on everybody else, endlessly fertilizing city sprawl with freeways and asphalt, and carving up the Cottonwood Canyons for a gondola within the identify of decreased journey time and pleasure rides for rich skiers.
As extra wildfire smoke, mud and ozone blanket the Wasatch Entrance; because the Nice Salt Lake disappears and our reservoirs shrivel up; as temperatures rise and drought decimates our forests; as our watershed and open house are paved over, there’s however a touch that our lawmakers are lastly rising from their environmental comas. And sadly, solely due to the remainder of the world shining a harsh highlight on us.
Brian Moench, M.D., Salt Lake Metropolis, is president, Utah Physicians for a Wholesome Atmosphere.