Thank you, Salt Lake Tribune, for the Sept. 22 story “Development Quagmire.” It brought excellent coverage to the hows and whys of Salt Lake’s wetlands being left alone.
People, especially state legislators, need to understand that we get one chance to get it right. By building the proposed inland port, we unintentionally poison our Salt Lake population. Through extensive pesticide use to poison mosquito larvae, we pollute the very air Salt Lake Valley residents need to live. We are also killing the “good insects” and affecting the region’s wildlife.
In a time when we are building our way right into worsening air quality through expanding Salt Lake City International Airport, building a new expansive state prison and now adding to air pollution by facilitating higher levels of truck emissions, the inherent danger trucks pose to residents on our highways and the reduction of natural space (that, importantly, helps filter polluted air) through the building of an inland port goes against the very tenet of the Legislature: Protect the common good.
In the story, Dr. Brian Moench, “points to a 2009 Endocrine Society study that warned ‘any level of exposure at all’ to certain hormone-disrupting chemicals (found in pesticides) could cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities (in humans).”
The public health threat should halt the inland port in its tracks.
Message to legislators: Affluence does not equal health.
Why do we, as citizens and taxpayers, allow our elected officials to move forward with the inland port? Wake up, Salt Lake, and smell the fresh air. Don’t take it or the wild animals and insects that maintain our soils and ecosystems for granted.
We’ve already assaulted our wetlands of the northwestern Salt Lake Valley severely enough with the airport expansion and new prison. Utah has one chance to get this right. Stop the inland port.
Ellen Birrell, Cottonwood Heights