Utah residents are not sure they can live with Gov.
Michael Leavitt’s legacy. In 1995, Leavitt proposed a 120-mile
“Legacy Highway,” running along the booming Wasatch Front (HCN,
3/16/98). The four-lane highway would help shuttle commuters
through the Salt Lake valley, and run right along the shore of the
Great Salt Lake.
The proposal sparked road rage
among critics, who said another freeway would only make traffic
problems worse. Environmentalists and duck hunters argued that the
road would encourage suburban sprawl and destroy wildlife habitat
along the lake. Utah farmers joined the fray, fearing the road and
surrounding development would gobble up
farmland.
The debate heated up in June, when the
Utah Department of Transportation decided to support running the
highway through 160 acres of federally protected
wetlands.
“It’s a classic conflict,” says Brooks
Carter, chief of the local regulatory office of the Army Corps of
Engineers, which has jurisdiction over the project. Of the three
alternatives, the state-supported option is the closest to the
shore of the Great Salt Lake and runs through the “highest quality
wetlands,” says Carter. “Our guidelines say we can only permit the
least damaging of alternatives.”
One of the
problems with the alternative that damages wetlands the least is
that it passes “within a stone’s throw” of Lane Beattie’s house,
according to Carter. Beattie, president of the Utah Senate, joined
city governments in pushing for the route closer to the lake, which
would give the cities more room to grow.
Now the
conflict between the state and the Army Corps is moving to
Washington, D.C. Members of Utah’s congressional delegation have
contacted Carter’s bosses, trying to convince the Army Corps to
support the lakeside route. The outcome of these meetings is
uncertain, but, says Carter, “the closer you get to Washington, the
more politics is involved.”
*Cheryl Fox
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Should a highway run through it?.
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