The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) is an alliance of citizens and organizations working to protect the health of Utahns from nuclear and toxic waste.
Our membership is a diverse coalition that empowers citizens to fight the governmental agencies and private interests that have targeted Utah as a nuclear and toxic waste dumping ground.

Description:
The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) is an alliance of citizens and organizations working to protect the health of Utahns from those who pollute our environment for profit. Our membership includes clergy, business leaders, doctors, attorneys, activists, parents, consumer advocates, professors, teachers, authors, artists and other concerned citizens. This diverse coalition has joined together to promote a healthy environment in which to live, work and nurture our communities by empowering citizens to fight the governmental agencies and private interests that have targeted Utah as the dumping ground for their toxic and nuclear waste.

We have found there is a direct relationship between the vitality and capacity of a community’s civic environment and the health of its natural environment. A dysfunctional civic environment not only fails to defend itself against the abuse of its natural environment, it invites that abuse. Such is the case in Utah where our deserts have become the rug under which the nation’s toxic wastes are swept. To the extent that we allow Utah’s West Desert to become the enabler for a toxic economy, we encourage a collective behavior that is self-destructive. Burying yesterday’s hazardous waste so that even more lethal waste can be produced only postpones the day of reckoning and blocks the emergence of new, innovative, and clean technologies that can change the way our society deals with these problems.

HEAL Utah is focused not only on educating citizens about the problems we face, but also on building their civic skills in order to solve these problems and prevent future ones from occurring. Polluters will continue to target marginalized and disenfranchised communities until we collectively speak out for the protection of our health. By teaching the basic skills of how to participate in the democratic process, HEAL Utah is working to ensure fundamental changes occur in the way we make decisions; primarily that the public, not polluters, shape our environmental policies.

History:
When the Army prepared to incinerate weapons filled with deadly nerve agent at the Tooele Army Depot in the early 1990's, the number of Utahns who actively questioned the safety of their methods for workers and people living downwind could be counted on one hand. By comparison, in the seven other states where chemical weapons incinerators were planned, the Army program was considered highly controversial and citizen opposition was widespread.

Knowing that government never performs well when given a blank check and citizens look the other way, a few brave people started attending hearings, asking tough questions, and getting others involved. Families Against Incinerator Risk grew from this effort and was soon leading whistle-blowers out of the incinerator, taking the Army and its contractor to court, and expanding efforts to take on some of the worst polluters in the state by committing to campaigns against dioxin pollution from both Magcorp and the Davis County Garbage Incinerator.

When it became clear that Utah was being targeted by predatory corporations as the place to dump the nation's nuclear wastes, FAIR spread its wings, and in 2001 helped create the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah). The various organizations and individuals that are part of this alliance have a rich and diverse history of grassroots organizing that dates back three decades. In fact, in the early 1980s, HEAL Utah member organization Women Concerned/Utahns United stopped the proposed MX Nuclear Missile program, which would have resulted in the construction of the world's largest nuclear weapons complex in Utah's West Desert.

Today HEAL has established itself as a leader in the struggle to make Utah's environment healthy and safe for all. We have grown from a small group of six people meeting around a table to the point that we now have thousands of supporters, hundreds of members, dozens of core volunteers, and three staff. Our successful campaign to get the importation of hotter radioactive wastes banned by a reluctant state legislature is proof that when citizens insist on open, inclusive, and accountable governance, they can be heard and heeded. HEAL Utah is focused not only on educating citizens about the problems we face, but also on building their civic skills in order to solve these problems and prevent future ones from occurring. Special interests and the federal government will continue to target Utah as a dumping ground and pollute our environment until we collectively speak out for the protection of our health. By teaching people how to participate in the democratic process, HEAL Utah is working to ensure fundamental changes occur in the way we make decisions; primarily that the public, not polluters, plays a meaningful role in determining whether our state will serve as an enabler for a toxic economy, or one that promotes a healthy environment in which to raise our families.

Contact people:

Jessica Kendrick, Field Organizer, (phone), (email) John Urgo, Outreach Director, (phone), (email)

Address:

68 S Main Street Suite 400 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.healutah.org

Directions:

Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: City Center Trax Stop