West Weber Inland Port approved amid community outcry

Weber County residents and environmental advocates protest against the West Weber Inland Port at the Utah State Capitol on May 20, 2024. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch)

Hours after dozens of residents protested against a nearly 9,000-acre inland port project in west Weber County, the Utah Inland Port Authority unanimously gave a nod to the plan to create a new hub in the area. 

The board agreed the project is in the public interest and is economically sound and feasible, according to the resolution to adopt the project area plan, which includes the logistical, economic and environmental considerations for the port.

However, locals worry about the effects the inland port would have on the environment and their health. Holding signs in the state Capitol that read “protect our wetlands, not developer’s pockets,” and “don’t make Weber a wasteland,” they asked the Utah Inland Port Authority to slow down the process and conduct an environmental impact assessment.

“The port will endanger the (Great Salt) Lake, the protected wetlands around it, cultural Shoshone sites, and in the name of jobs, endanger the health of all of us,” Patty Becnel, a retired teacher living in Pleasant View, said in a news conference on Monday ahead of the vote. 

Becnel has lived in Weber County for more than 40 years and witnessed how the fields around her house have turned into homes, which she believes are necessary for a growing state. However, she worries an inland port won’t be a development as positive as the housing occupied by her neighbors. It would increase pollution in the area, she said, and strip her local government of control over the area. 

“We ask the port authority to complete the studies they promised Salt Lake City years ago, slow down and do due diligence on the entire port plans,” she said, “Explain to us honestly how Utah will be able to support eight to nine ports within a 150-mile area. Do not move forward until you can explain with facts and figures that these projects will not damage biological wetlands, not draw more water from the Great Salt Lake, not make our air quality even worse.”

The Utah Inland Port Authority Board, however, said development is imminent and the plan has “big concessions.”

“If landowners wanted to, they could go out and start developing. It’s zoned commercial,” said Joel Ferry, a board member and executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources.

This is also an industrial site, not a pristine, untouched wetland area, Ferry said, so the plans may strengthen the protections.

“Ultimately this ends up in a much better place than if we were just to walk away and let it happen organically,” he said. 

In the project’s presentation to the authority board, Mona Smith, a Utah Inland Port Authority manager, said wetlands, such as swamps, marshes, bogs and playas would need a minimum 600-foot buffer zone from the industrial properties. There must also be a 600-foot setback from waterfowl management areas.

The board also approved 3% of the tax differential for the project area to fund wetland mitigation projects.

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Ben Hart, executive director of the authority, added nothing in the development plan would trigger the National Environmental Policy Act, but some other assessments may come at a later time.

“As other things do get closer to development, there are some studies that are still required to be completed,” Hart said. “At the appropriate times all federal state and local regulations will be called.”

Weber County has been working on its Western Weber Corridor, preparing it for these kinds of developments, said Stephanie Russell, the county’s economic development director. The county envisions the area will become an industrial, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy hub.

“The county supports this fully and for the reasons that you brought out,” she said in response to Ferry’s comments. “The development is happening, it’s going to happen. We can get in and help steer the development, which is what we’re doing with our development partners, or we can just let it come out carte blanche.”

Still, the community believes public approval and funding is what’s keeping the industrial project alive, some advocates said. Environmental activists also warned about the health repercussions the plan may carry. 

Courtney Henley, a doctor and board member with Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, said during the Monday conference that this kind of heavy manufacturing activity leads to ultrafine particulate matter, silver oxide, nitrogen oxides, toxic heavy metals and organic compounds. Once that starts, Henley said, there may not be other opportunities for prevention.

“Strokes, heart attacks, asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cancers, miscarriages, premature births, depression, suicide, delayed learning,” Henley said, “all of these problems are caused and definitely exacerbated by air pollution.”

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