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Show Rezoning approval clears way for $100 million refinery on 88-acre North Salt Lake site "."ZX?Z r. ' ' . . 1 ' I U.S. Petroleum will build a $1 00 million wax refinery on this lot, which is in North Salt Lake, though owned technically by Salt Lake City. A rezone of this property was approved by North Salt Lake city council Tuesday night. By JUDY JENSEN NORTH SALT LAKE Officials Offi-cials from U.S. Petroleum Corporation Corpor-ation made their presentation explaining ex-plaining their proposed refinery to a packed house at the North Salt Lake city council meeting on Tuesday. Tues-day. After all was said and done, the council voted to rezone 88 acres on the Northwest corner of Center Street and Redwood Road, from Ml to M2, paving the way for the future wax plant. Very few protests to the plant were heard during the two hour public hearing. The majority of citizens who asked questions regarding re-garding the proposal were adjoining adjoin-ing and surrounding property owners own-ers seeking assurances that the new business would not have an adverse effect on their property values or business volume. Bob Hardy of Fluor Daniel, Inc., the overall engineering and construction con-struction contractor on the project, told the citizens that the company wants "to be a friendly neighbor in the community." He explained that over 500 workers will be employed em-ployed during the construction phase of the project. Construction will take approximately approxi-mately 18 months and will begin in 1988. An estimated 50 to 75 people will be required for refinery administration, admi-nistration, operation and maintenance mainte-nance at the facility when it is completed. com-pleted. In addition to these jobs, the company projects than 300 more jobs will be created elsewhere in Utah when other planned U . S . Petroleum Pet-roleum operations are underway in 1988 and 1990. Mr. Hardy told the audience that most of the people employed will be local workers. The construction should also be done with local sub-contractors. The North Salt Lake plant will be the first of its kind built in the United States. The process of separating wax from crude oil will use about 9000 gallons of crude each day. The finished product will be used in cosmetics, candles, and in other consumer products, but primarily as a coating on corrugated corru-gated containers. The plant will utilize 40 holding tanks, the largest of which wjll ton-tain ton-tain over 2 million gallons of crude oil. Mr. Hardy told the group that the company has plans to landscape land-scape the perimeter of the plant to beautify the area. Approximately 72 trucks per day will haul the crude to the plant and 10 rail cars will be loaded each day to transport the product. Although this volume will have a significant impact on the surrounding area, officials of the company assured the group that every effort will be made to minimize any negative effects. Traffic flow has been engineered en-gineered to allow only one entrance entr-ance to the facility. The question of environmental impact was raised. One member of the Sierra Club told the council that he had investigated the project, and State Environmental agencies officials he had spoken to had not been contacted by U.S. Petroleum regarding the proposed project. Stanley Cooper, chairman, CEO and director of U.S. Petroleum, assured the group that they had been in touch with all of the necessary neces-sary agencies and that the company com-pany plans to meet or exceed all applicable federal, state, and local environmental and performance standards. The new plant will have a flare, but it will be a thermo-oxidizer thermo-oxidizer flare that will be odorless and flameless. Councilman Carlin Jacobsen told the crowd that he and City Manager Collin Wood had recently . returned from Mississippi, where they had toured another U.S. Petroleum Pet-roleum facility. "I guess I was invited in-vited to go because I was against the project to begin with," he said and added, "I have now reversed my opinion. The plant there is great and this one will be even better." He explained that throughout the tour the facility was completely open to them, "nothing was hidden from me, it was a clean operation and I came back convinced that I would much rather have this refinery refin-ery than all that junky ground we have there now." Mr. Wood echoed his opinion. He told the gathering that he too was impressed impress-ed by the Mississippi facility. ' v" What we wanted to see is how the new technology in refineries has changed the business. These that we now have in the city are old. The new refinery we saw was much quieter and cleaner than those we currently have. It did not seem to have any impact on the surrounding environment and they looked like a good neighbor. It had not downgraded the other business in the area," he said. One gentleman questioned the landscaping plans of the company. "Don't you have about 30 acres to landscape there along Redwood Road?" he asked. "Yes we do," answered Mr. Cooper, "and if I had my way it would be the first hole of a golf course," he laughed. He explained that plans are to plant grass and flowers in the area. Two hours after the discussion had begun, Councilman Fred Moosman motioned to approve the rezone 10 aiiow me company to proceed with their plans. The motion mo-tion was unanimously approved by all those present. Councilwoman Shanna Schaefermeyer was unable to attend the meeting. After the vote was taken there were many audible sighs of relief from the crowd. Many of the spectators spec-tators had a vested interest in seeing the project approved. The mood of the meeting changed from one of trepidation to one of jubilation. jubila-tion. There were handshakes all around and a plethora of business cards exchanged. Nearly 20 minutes mi-nutes passed before Mayor Jake Simmons called the meeting back to order to finish the agenda for the evening. |
