By Lindsay Beebe
On Saturday, February 29th the Utah Sierra Club gathered to stand in solidarity with the Utah Coalition to Keep Families Together at Mary Jackson Elementary in Salt Lake City. The event, "Creating Beloved Community: An Evening of Stories & Reflection" brought together community and activists working to prevent the construction of an immigrant detention center in Evanston, Wyoming that would increase incarceration of community members from Utah and the Intermountain West.
Margarita Satini shares first-person experiences in an impassioned call for action
Photo Credit: Lindsay Beebe
Beyond Coal organizer, Margarita Satini spoke powerfully about the economic transition underway in Utah's coal country, drawing parallels to the plight of southwestern Wyoming and this ill-conceived plan to replace extraction jobs with low-wage private prison jobs. In addition to being morally reprehensible, private prisons come with significant environmental effects. Light pollution disturbs people and wildlife, facilities suck up and dirty massive amounts of water, they put a strain on towns’ utilities, and have major health effects on imprisoned populations as well as prison workers.
The detention center in Evanston would be constructed adjacent to Bear River State Park. Water pollution and depletion stands to affect three downstream National Wildlife Refuges: Coleville Meadows NWR in Wyoming, Bear Lake NWR in Idaho, and Bear River Migratory NWR in Utah. As the largest tributary to the Great Salt Lake, the Bear River is critical for millions of migratory birds that pass through this globally important flyway stopover, to which Wasatch Front communities are also intimately interconnected.
The Sierra Club and partners are currently seeking opportunities to intervene in the permitting process for the proposed prison through the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). **In March, the Executive Committee of the Utah Chapter sent a letter to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) requesting information on the project's environmental assessment.