The route hasn’t been finalized, and construction won’t start for two years at minimum — but opposition is building for a proposed fuel pipeline that would go through Emigration Canyon and parts of Salt Lake City.

The HF Sinclair pipeline would “deliver critical fuel to meet the growing energy demands of the Rocky Mountain region,” Jeremy Price, the company’s senior manager for government and public affairs, told Salt Lake City Council members last week.

The pipeline would also reduce the number of tanker trucks carrying fuel on highways, reduce volatility in diesel prices and could provide a more stable supply of jet fuel for Salt Lake City International Airport, he said.

But council member Victoria Petro told Price and other HF Sinclair representatives: “I cannot be on board for what you’re proposing.”

Petro’s comment was the most direct sign, but not the only one, that council members have doubts about what the Dallas-based oil company calls the Westline Connect project. They raised issues from safety and watershed protection to how the pipeline would be regulated and what it would mean for nearby homeowners’ insurance costs.

Tuesday’s work session was informational and no vote was taken after nearly two hours of discussion. [Watch the discussion here.]

Although the council has not yet scheduled more hearings or time for public comment about the project specifically, Save Our Canyons has announced it will attend the council’s upcoming meeting Tuesday to participate during the regular open public comment period and invited others to join.

[Find more maps, other materials and submit comments at link.slc.gov/westlineconnect]

Save Our Canyons also said it plans to give comments at the Emigration Canyon City Council meeting the same night.

The advocacy group Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment has launched an online petition urging both councils to reject the Westline Connect project, citing the wildfire hazard, the limited access and evacuation route through Emigration Canyon, risks to the watershed, and the dangers of fire or fuel spills in urban areas.

Emigration Canyon residents have raised concerns about the watershed and expressed doubts that residents would benefit economically.

[Read more: Here’s what we know about the fuel pipeline project proposed for Emigration Canyon]

Why is Westline Connect being proposed?

The project, Price said, would supplement a current pipeline through the Wasatch Front — the Pioneer pipeline that HF Sinclair operates with Phillips 66. The Pioneer line was built in the 1950s and runs through Morgan County, and is “at capacity,” he said.

Price said that route now has other utilities running through it as well, and a new pipeline on its path through the “mountainous and challenging terrain” would present “advanced engineering and hillside stability issues.”

“It was studied extensively,” he said. “We looked at multiple options along that route. Ultimately, the decision not to proceed was based on a number of factors, including limited workspace in the existing corridor, construction risks and logistical challenges.”

The proposed Westline Connect pipeline would hook up with a pipeline from refineries in Wyoming, and carry refined petroleum products — such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel — through Emigration Canyon and parts of eastern and northern Salt Lake City to HF Sinclair’s facilities in North Salt Lake.

From there, fuel would then be linked for delivery across Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, the company says on its website.

The company has land agents in the field collecting data and doing survey work, he said. The federal and local permits the pipeline will need will depend on the exact final route, he added.

Technology to detect leaks and spills has improved significantly since 2010, said Randy Hall, the company’s director for technical services, when a Chevron pipeline unleashed thousands of gallons of crude oil in Salt Lake City’s eastern foothills.

HF Sinclair, though based in Dallas, maintains offices in Salt Lake City, where Sinclair Oil’s headquarters were housed from 1976 to 2022. That year, the Dallas-based company HollyFrontier acquired Sinclair, creating HF Sinclair — which still uses the old company’s green dinosaur logo that is familiar across the Intermountain West.

‘No final route selection’

Salt Lake City Council member Chris Wharton noted that the proposed route would go under five city parks and the Utah Fallen Warrior Memorial at Fort Douglas, past Primary Children’s Hospital, sacred Indigenous sites, the Salt Lake City Cemetery, and underneath City Creek, “which provides all of the water to downtown and to the state Capitol complex.”

Wharton added, “I am having a hard time thinking of a route that would hit more consequential sites than that.”

Price told Wharton that HF Sinclair weighed several factors in selecting the route under consideration, including “engineering and constructibility, our ability to build the project safely, our ability to access that pipe and maintenance needs [as they] arise.”

Price stressed that the route currently proposed isn’t set in stone. “That’s generally the path we propose at the moment, but no final route selection,” Price said, adding that the company would work with council members and city staff to find the best route.

When Price suggested later meetings with council members to discuss their concerns about the pipeline, though, Petro wasn’t interested in a backroom conversation soon. She offered to have a one-on-one discussion with Price later, and she even offered to cook a meal.

“I will cook for you because you are a human, and I love you as a human,” Petro told Price. “But right now, I need people who are tuning in [to the meeting], and [listening to] the public record, to hear this.”

The Salt Lake City Council issued a joint statement after the meeting that said HF Sinclair’s proposal “is incongruent with our shared responsibility to protect residents, visitors, drinking water, and the Great Salt Lake from serious environmental hazards.”

The council members said they would “stay at the table to learn more,” and urged the company to provide additional information about watershed and groundwater effects, and impacts to hospitals, residential neighborhoods and “other sensitive areas.”

So far, the council wrote, “there are no compelling benefits — only risks — for Salt Lakers.”