By McKenzie Romero | Editor
Fears about data center impacts on the Great Salt Lake have moved from the northern end, where the Stratos Project stirred an uproar, to the south, where the Tooele Valley Public Infrastructure District is in the works.
Opponents of the Tooele development are specifically worried about its application to dispose of concentrated wastewater brine that will make its way into the lake.
In today’s Dispatch we report on the public meeting where comments about data centers focused on the lake’s health, how downwinder families can learn more about applying for compensation, and the pediatricians on the front lines of Utah’s measles outbreak.
“We are being asked to accept industrial pollution in one of Utah's most fragile ecosystems, during one of the most prolonged droughts in our state's history.” — Terri Durfee, who lives near the Tooele Valley Public Infrastructure District, speaking against the development’s wastewater plan in a public meeting.
Opponents outnumbered supporters of a proposed shipping, manufacturing and data center hub near the Great Salt Lake’s southern shore during a public hearing on Monday, July 27 by the Utah Division of Water Quality. (Courtesy of Dave Noriega/Utah Department of Environmental Quality)
By Annie Knox
Opponents of the Tooele Valley Public Infrastructure District’s wastewater plan are raising concerns it could contaminate and further deplete the declining Great Salt Lake, harming migratory birds and public health as dust containing heavy metals rises from the exposed lakebed.
For two hours Monday, they urged state water managers to reject an application from developers of the Tooele project to discharge concentrated wastewater brine from a new well. More than 100 people filled a room at the Utah Division of Water Resources’ office in Salt Lake City, with some holding colorful signs saying “No data centers” and cheering when others took the microphone to condemn the project just off I-80.
A fireball rises into the sky over Nevada after the U.S. government detonated a 61-kiloton device on June 4, 1953. (Getty Images)
By Alixel Cabrera
Intermountain Health’s Downwinders Clinic will host meetings to help inform those who may qualify for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, also known as RECA. Now that more Utah regions are eligible for payment, the clinic is making stops across the state, including some cities in the north.
The RECA compensation is a $100,000 one-time payment for eligible “downwinders,” people who developed serious illnesses from nuclear weapons testing in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and New Mexico. The public information meetings are scheduled in late July and early August in St. George, Provo, Salt Lake City, Logan and Ogden.
Emilie Morris, a hospital pediatrician in Salt Lake County and Utah County in Utah, has treated children severely ill with measles. (Amy Maxmen/KFF Health News)
KFF HEALTH NEWS
By Amy Maxmen
This isn’t just a bad year for measles. It looks to be the start of a bad era. Confirmed measles cases just hit a 35-year high, and it’s only July. Together with last year, the number of cases has exceeded the combined total over the previous 25 years. The vast majority of cases stem from domestic outbreaks fueled by low rates of vaccination — and rates are declining.
Pediatricians in Utah have been on the front lines as measles and other vaccine-preventable ailments have returned to the U.S. In interviews with KFF Health News, six doctors shared insights on this new era of vaccine hesitancy — and what could be done to turn the situation around.
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