The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in collaboration with The Great Salt Lake Collaborative.
Dead sheep carcasses dumped above the confluence of the Bear River. Ibises at the edge of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge “struggling to rid themselves” of contaminated oil leaked from a nearby property. A business alleged to have dumped chemicals near Mill Creek from cleaning up a meth house.
These are a handful of incidents called into the Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s spills hotline, where there was no evidence that regulators investigated them when they were reported.
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project reviewed 174 reports made to the state spills database from 2019 through the first half of 2024 that specifically related to pollution of storm drains and some of the main surface waters that feed the Great Salt Lake.
John Mackey is the director of water quality for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, and he says in the past not enough care was given to considering how pollution affects the Great Salt Lake.
"The Great Salt Lake has been treated like the way we have treated the ocean, as an infinite resource into which we can put as much pollution as we want and we will never see it and it will never hurt us--and we now know that's wrong," Mackey said.
The lake itself is an invaluable habitat for migrating birds and supports a multi-million dollar brine shrimp harvesting industry, and tributaries like the Jordan River and Bear River sustain the state’s most iconic and imperiled body of water. They are also vital to local ecosystems and economies through agricultural and recreational uses.
But investigations into complaints of alleged willful pollution of these rivers and storm drains reveal that enforcement is hit or miss depending on the state agency or local health department with jurisdiction to investigate. Federal cuts by President Trump may make enforcement even more difficult.
Out of the 174 reports of spills affecting the Bear River and Jordan River, which are two of the primary tributaries of the Great Salt Lake, 150 were accidental. Of the 24 reports of allegedly willful polluters, only two received fines, according to documents. In the rest of the incidents or warnings, authorities determined that no action needed to be taken and educational materials were provided. Three incidents don’t appear to have been investigated at all.
William Andreen, is a professor emeritus of law at the University of Alabama who has long studied the Clean Water Act and the challenges of state and local regulation. It’s relatively easy to inspect and keep an eye on big factories and facilities on coastal shorelines or alongside rivers and lakes, he said. But it’s much more challenging to keep up with smaller and difficult to monitor “nonpoint source” problems that can range from contamination from construction sites to pesticides from farmlands.
“There's not a whole lot of resources devoted to nonpoint source problems or stormwater problems,” Andreen said. “Either at the state level or, I'm sure, at the local level, and you know there's probably some lack of political will.”
“Environmental Neighborhood Watch”
People can report spills in Utah through the state Department of Environmental Quality’s hotline, which is operated 24 hours a day by eight full-time duty officers. These officers will help coordinate responses like directing different agencies to emergency responses if, for instance, a tanker truck jackknifes on the freeway and spills chemicals near a body of water. The majority of incidents reviewed by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project were accidental releases – from construction crews inadvertently cutting sewer lines to gas station spills to road crews leaving hose spigots open on road sealant.
“We act as a clearing house so that we can identify emergency situations and get that information out to emergency planners and, if necessary, get resources to an incident,” said Thomas Daniels, who oversees the hotline for DEQ’s Division of Environmental Response and Remediation. “We are not first responders, we are the ones providing those resources.”
The agency also sends reports of illegal or willfully negligent pollution to state regulators or local health departments to do follow-up investigations. Daniels said the work of the hotline is “like an environmental neighborhood watch.” But when a tip about a potential eco-crime comes in, the hotline just passes the information along.
Hank Tolman is a member of The Utah Stormwater Coalition and owner of the Accena Group that provides stormwater consulting services for companies to help them comply with local laws and regulations. The coalition advocates for consistent stormwater requirements for businesses across the state.
The way stormwater is regulated in the state is largely left up to cities, Tolman said. There are specific regulations for construction sites and certain other industrial facilities but cities are responsible for most oversight.
“It’s the municipalities job to make sure that everywhere else is covered, and we’re talking food trucks, restaurants, just a regular old parking lot at the mall, anything like that,” he said.
Regulation left to the honor system
In Utah, a city can inspect every facility once every two years. That’s expensive, however, so they are more likely to allow properties to do self inspections and only get a formal inspection once every five years. It ultimately leaves a lot of regulation up to the honor system, or to individuals who might spot bad behavior and report it.
That means that when bad behavior is reported, the way it is handled depends on the agency taking the report.
The case of the sheep carcasses was reported April 4, 2021, to the Bear River Health Department. When the department was contacted about the investigation, it said it had no report filed but recalled that an employee had talked to the property owner and he had cleaned up the carcasses. The department then provided a follow-up report when asked by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project nearly four years after the fact.
Similar circumstances occurred with the Aug. 13, 2020, investigation of a property owner in Smithfield who was alleged to have had “used oil containers stuffed directly into the irrigation drainage system” near the edge of the Bear River Bird Refuge. The Bear River Health Department said staff had warned the property owner and he cleaned up the property. There was no documentation of these efforts at the time of the complaint and the health agency could only provide a follow-up report based on a staff member’s memory of the incident and a follow-up inspection prompted by questions from The Utah Investigative Journalism Project.
In 2022 the state received a tip that a company that cleans up meth houses was alleged to be dumping chemicals from a cleanup project near Mill Creek. While the whistleblower said the chemicals were dumped “20 feet from Mill Creek,” the Utah Division of Water Quality decided to take no action as “There are no impacts to waters of the state.” No records were found of anyone reaching out to warn the business about being careful with disposal of its chemicals.
Scattershot approach to enforcement
Responses were also mixed on the following incidents:
- On April 29, 2019, an employee with the state Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, reported an “unknown party is dumping debris and solid waste into the Jordan River.” The state referred the incident to the Salt Lake County Health Department, but the county has no records of any follow ups on the matter.
- On September 24, 2020, someone reported a “construction site has been discharging water from an unknown source into the gutter for several months.” This matter was delegated to Salt Lake City Public Utilities who found a construction company did not have a city discharge permit. No fines were issued, the company obtained the permit and was provided with an educational pamphlet.
- On March 6, 2021, someone reported “gray sediment in Parley’s Creek that appeared to be coming from the quarry upstream.” DWQ inspected the site four days later and found the creek was clear and did not reach out to the quarry or take further action.
- On May 17, 2022, a company was reported to be dumping potentially hundreds of gallons of chemicals from a floor cleaning machine into a stormwater culvert every week. The incident was reported to the Salt Lake County Health Department and DWQ. The health department had no record of follow ups and the state report said no enforcement action was taken by DWQ.
Two companies reported to the Spills Database did receive fines after investigations. In 2023 someone took photos of a cleaning company using a power washer and sweeping waste into a gutter in the Avenues in Salt Lake City. The company received a $1,000 fine and had to pay for laboratory costs related to the investigation by Salt Lake City officials.
A much larger fine was handed down to another company – American Chemical LLC, which was found to be processing contaminated glycerin from California biodiesel operations.
Among other problems, inspectors found “foul smelling, dark water” in a ditch running from the facility to the Malad River which feeds the Bear River. The company paid a $27,519 fine after a 2019 investigation by the Bear River Health Department and the Box Elder County Fire Marshal's office.
See a spill, report a spill
Andreen, with the University of Alabama, said that laws against nonpoint source pollution in the nation are virtually unenforceable. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has a program known as the 319 grant that provides between $150 and $200 million a year to projects to help protect against nonpoint source pollution. But spread across countless waterways nationwide, Andreen said it’s not nearly enough.
“It would take 700 years to address all the water quality impaired streams for nonpoint source pollution,” with the current funding, Andreen said.
And that was before the current Trump administration froze EPA funding.
Andreen said enforcement will likely be similar to that during the Reagan administration when clean water enforcement fell to about half its normal level, he said.
“But it might even fall more than that because the agency’s going to be without a whole bunch of employees once they get done with their layoffs, and morale is going to be shot to smithereens,” Andreen said. He also said that when federal enforcement falls off, “the states usually don’t pick up the gap.”
Tolman of The Utah Stormwater Coalition said more can be done when it comes to educating citizens about stormwater pollution.
Several years ago he and other coalition members interviewed people in downtown Salt Lake City to ask if they knew what happened to the water going down the drain.
“It was eye opening,” Tolman said. “Most people that we talked to didn’t realize that the water was not treated and that it just ended up right into the nearest body of water.”
Tolman noted that cities that operate with the standard MS4 permit (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) are required to do public education and outreach. Smaller cities might do something like hold a sparsely attended “Water Fair” or send a public works employee to an elementary school to talk about stormwater pollution.
“I think elementary school students should know about stormwater pollution and what's affecting their waterways,” Tolman said. “But you know by the time they are homeowners and they’re washing their car in the street and letting the soap suds run down the drain or mowing their lawn and having all of the grass clippings run down it, they’re not going to remember that class.”
In other states he’s seen public service announcements aired on primetime television that reach a lot more people. Cost is the sticking point.
“I think if we pooled our resources and did something statewide, that might
be a better way to reach people,” Tolman said.
Lionel Trepanier is a longtime activist who has taken it upon himself to report questionable spills through the state hotline. He’s been fighting for clean water for decades and in Illinois was part of a lawsuit settled in 2000 that required the state to list pollution in a database similar to Utah’s current spills database.
In 2021, he filed the report of gray sediment in Parley’s Creek downstream from a quarry that neither the state nor county health department reached out to. Even with such a discouraging response, Trepanier said every citizen should be on the lookout for possible polluters and report them immediately. He recommended being specific and providing photos whenever possible. Filing a report will create accountability and a record of action or inaction that might be useful if a reported spill turns into a larger concern. Reporting allows citizens to take an active part in protecting the environment and supporting companies doing things the right way.
“If we don’t stand up and enforce our regulations, then the person who is doing the job right, they get hurt, because they can’t compete with the person who is able to get away with taking shortcuts,” he said.
