A coalition of environmental organizations held a press conference at the Utah State Capitol to call for an end to Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) subsidies. The groups expressed concerns that industrial development and data center projects funded by these subsidies threaten the Great Salt Lake and its surrounding wetlands.
Speakers representing Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Center for Biological Diversity, Utah Sierra Club, and the Stop the Polluting Ports Coalition highlighted more than $680 million in planned UIPA subsidies intended to fast-track industrial development within the Great Salt Lake Basin.
The coalition pointed to the Tooele Valley UIPA project as a primary example of these concerns. This 1,200-acre industrial campus on the shores of the Great Salt Lake includes a proposed 500-megawatt natural gas power plant and a 200-acre data center complex. The project is supported by public financing exceeding $240 million.
Developed by Chuck Akerlow’s Zenith Development, the Tooele Valley project area also plans for a Love’s truck stop, a hotel, and other industrial uses. The developer intends to draw water from an aquifer connected to the Great Salt Lake and its wetlands. Because the local water is brackish, the plan involves building a reverse osmosis water treatment plant that would discharge 25 2,000 gallons of concentrated wastewater per day into a drainage channel through Class 5E transitional wetlands.
A state water quality permit for this discharge is currently under public review, with a public hearing scheduled for July 27, 2026.
The coalition's arguments addressed the broader context of Utah's environmental challenges, noting that the state currently has the worst air quality in the nation. At the time of the announcement, wildfires were burning across Tooele, Juab, Utah, Millard, and Iron Counties.
While Governor Cox’s Executive Order 2026-03 established a Data Center Framework requiring agencies like UIPA to protect Great Salt Lake water quality and mitigate wildlife impacts, speakers at the press conference argued that UIPA's current approach is incompatible with that mandate.
