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Transportation:
Appropriation for a Utah Lake Transportation Study

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: hb115
Sponsor: Rep Kenneth Sumsion (R-American Fork)
Legislative Session: 2008 General Session

Status

Action Needed

This bill hasn't yet been heard in committee so it's an ideal time to let your representative know to oppose this bill.  It's especially important if your representative is a member of the House Transportation Committee whose members are listed below.  Find your representative with the convenient district maps.

Tell your representative that this expenditure is a waste of money because

1) The federal Clean Water Act would never allow either a causeway or a bridge,

2) Even if federal didn't prohibit this solution, the cost of a bridge--the least environmentally damaging alternative--would run to $500 million, and

3) To build this infrastructure on the public tab would merely encourage more land speculation and low density development on the west side of Utah Lake.

Contact

Background

This is by no means the first proposal to build a bridge or a causeway across Utah Lake.  One of the more fanciful past schemes involved a north-south causeway intersecting an east-west causeway at an artificial island on which an amusement park would be built.

Current plans would not come cheap.  According to an article by Brandon Loomis in the Salt Lake Tribune dated 3 December 2007, "Most likely the project, costing $150 million to $500 million depending on design, would require tolls, possibly to a private business that builds it."

The Environmental Protection Agency's website has a primer on the wetlands protections provided by the Clean Water Act's Section 404.