Utah mines and quarries produce 13,000 metric tons of crushed stone and 36,300 metric tons of sand and gravel. This aggregate produces 49,008 miles of public road across the U.S., sourced from 235 different mines around The Wasatch Front.
The process needed for extracting gravel aggregate leaves a massive environmental impact. It involves the removal of all natural vegetation and multiple layers of soil. This destroys plant and animal ecosystems and contaminates surface and groundwater.
Gravel mine dust releases toxic chemicals such as arsenic, lead and vanadium. Utah’s air ranks among the worst in the world during inversion season. Proposed bill HB335 severely limits restrictions on these dangerous quarries, stripping the authority of local government on their ongoing expansion.
The opinions of Utah residents should matter when it comes to projects that permanently alter our landscape and endanger our health. HB335 is unethical. The 2025 proposition gives already formidable mining companies far too much power over our shared non-renewable resources and fragile environment.
Utah’s legislature must preserve the power of local jurisdictions and invest in sustainable economic endeavors. This will preserve public health and prevent the climate catastrophe from accelerating.
Inequitable Health Risks
I spoke via email with Katie Balakir, the senior policy associate at Heal Utah. Heal opposes HB335 because of the limits it places on local governments.
“It [HB335] stifles the opportunity for public input and consideration, and prioritizes industry interests at the expense of local autonomy,” Balakir said.
She said Heal’s biggest issue with gravel pits is air quality.
“Fugitive dust emissions from gravel pits can pose significant threats to our health, especially when coupled with dust storms from the exposed Great Salt Lake lakebed,” she added.
In 2024, Utah ranked fourth nationally in toxic chemical releases. Mining was responsible for 80% of this, exposing us to lethal chemicals such as arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, selenium and zinc through our air and water.
Public health risks such as these disproportionately affect lower-income communities. The already notably high toxic chemical and C02 levels in our ozone get trapped in the valley. This places Utah among the worst places worldwide for air quality, especially for lower-elevation areas. In 2024, Salt Lake experienced eight days in which air quality was so bad that it was considered a serious health risk.
This is an issue of equity because higher elevation communities in Salt Lake are wealthier, causing the inversion’s dangerous effects to disproportionately impact low-income areas.
Park City has an elevation of 7,000ft, an average air quality index of ‘good’ and an average home price of $900,000. South Salt Lake has an elevation of 4,255 feet, an average air quality index of ‘poor’ and an average home price of $487,450.
Balakir points out that HB355’s restrictions go directly against the results of a study that the Utah legislature commissioned last year, the HB502 study.
“The HB502 study found that the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ) does not have the resources it needs to increase monitoring and enforcement of air quality standards, which would be absolutely necessary if we were to increase mining activity throughout the state,” Balakir said.
HB355 shifts the burden of proof for these concerns away from mining companies, meaning that companies planning mineral extraction projects do not have to prove that their plans are safe. Instead local governments must establish, as the bill states, “clear and convincing evidence of the project endangering public health, safety or welfare.”
“Even if [local governments] are able to meet that burden of proof, the only recourse they have is proposing a mitigation plan,” Balakir said.
If the operator agrees to the mitigation plan, the local government cannot further limit the operation. While it does give local governments a course of action, that action is limited and effectively takes away local land use authority.
This is another way the bill goes directly against the HB502 study, which states that “land-use designations, rezoning and permit decisions should remain with local officials where the benefits and impacts of quarries are most realized.”
“There has been little to no discussion about why we’ve moving in a different direction from the study’s findings,” Balalkir said.
Local control of these projects is critical.
“We should prioritize a local government’s ability to make decisions on behalf of their communities and unique circumstances,” she added.
Expansion is Completely Unnecessary
The fight for basic public health and safety is on an uneven playing field as Utah gravel and mining companies put constant monetary pressure on Utah’s legislature. Gov. Cox has accepted over a quarter million dollars from the mining industry since 2019 — the same year that the Utah senate passed HB288, a bill similar to HB355 which protected gravel pits and mining businesses from local interference.
Billion-dollar mining companies have used deceptive tactics to expand Utah’s mining industry. In 2022 Granite Construction pressured the Utah Legislature to provide them with permits for the controversial Parley’s Canyon mine by citing an urgent gravel shortage that supposedly would destroy Utah’s economy if not remedied by more quarries.
However, these threats of impending economic disaster were proven wrong by the HB502 study, which revealed that Utah faces no shortage of what Granite Construct called “critical infrastructure material.”
Additionally, there is a growing amount of sustainable alternatives to gravel quarries. Most of what is mined in Utah gravel quarries is composed of limestone which is used for cement production. However, major cement companies Holcim and CRH have recently developed techniques that allow for the production of cement without the need for limestone.
As the far-reaching effects of climate catastrophe slowly suffocate humanity, it is time for all levels of government to start taking environmentalism seriously because we do not have any other options. We do not have the time or the non-renewable resources left to cling to mineral extraction as economic scaffolding.
Resist efforts that paint industries that have always been unsustainable as necessary evils. We have no choice but to do better. It’s time to demand that public health and the well-being of our planet be taken as seriously as industry lobbying.
