Month: June 2025

Major League Baseball should be in Utah. I’ll never stop saying it.

But while league expansion isn’t coming anytime soon, and the odds of another abrupt Arizona Coyotes-style relocation falling into Utah’s lap are low, that doesn’t mean the Beehive State can’t still host big league ball in the near future.

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As baseball’s widespread popularity has declined in recent years, MLB has been forced to get creative and try new things as a means to drum up more interest in the sport.

One such innovation has been the addition of “specialty games” to the league’s calendar each summer. These neutral site contests are played in unique locations and carry a specific theme that MLB can market like crazy during the July/August sports lull that precedes football season.

There have been 12 specialty games since 2016, with two more coming up in 2025. The most famous came in the form of the “Field of Dreams” game in 2021, when the Yankees and White Sox faced off in the famed Iowa cornfield from Kevin Costner’s 1989 tearjerker.

The event was such a smash hit that MLB brought it back the following year. The “Field of Dreams” game worked for three major reasons:

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• Solid, beloved source material to theme everything around.

• Cranking up the nostalgia factor to the max.

• A memorable, scenic location.

There’s a Utah version of the “Field of Dreams” game that could follow the exact same formula. It’s such a no-brainer that I can’t believe it hasn’t happened already.

Two words: “The Sandlot.”

‘You’re killing me, Smalls!’

If you’ve never seen “The Sandlot,” my condolences. You were either robbed of an important adolescent experience or didn’t provide it to your own children.

The film follows a young boy named Scotty Smalls who moves to a new town and is welcomed into a group of neighborhood boys who play baseball together every day in the summer of 1962.

The 1993 classic was filmed almost entirely in Utah, joining an esteemed collection of cinematic achievements within the state that include “Dumb and Dumber,” “Footloose,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “The Phone Call.”

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“The Sandlot” isn’t the best baseball movie ever made — truthfully, it probably doesn’t even crack the top five — but it very well may be the genre’s most iconic entry. It’s the seminal childhood flick, perfectly depicting the magic, terror and wonder of growing up and the bond shared with your closest friends.

Plus, it’s endlessly quotable, visually appealing, has a terrific musical score and introduced the world to the legends of Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez and “The Great Hambino” Ham Porter.

Seriously, Ham Porter puts up a Hall of Fame performance in this film. His actor, Patrick Renna — who looks the exact same today as he did in 1993 — really should have gotten some Oscar buzz for his work as Ham. As Babe Ruth says in the movie, “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

So yes, “The Sandlot” definitely fits the bill as beloved source material to base an entire specialty game upon.

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Aside from the “Field of Dreams” game, MLB has done specialty games at the College World Series, Little League World Series, at a U.S. military base and a historic Negro Leagues stadium in Alabama.

This year, the Little League World Series game will return, along with a meeting between the Braves and Mets at … Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway.

That’s right. MLB is playing a specialty game at a NASCAR racetrack. If that’s the best idea the league could come up with for this year, clearly the need for a “Sandlot” game is greater than I originally thought. Let’s make this happen.

Features for the game

The “Field of Dreams” game began with Costner leading the Yankees and White Sox out of the cornfield, then giving a heartfelt pregame speech to help set the stage for the rest of the evening.

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You can watch the sequence below. It’s pretty remarkable — Costner is Costner, after all — and perfectly matches the tone of the film.

The “Sandlot” game will need its own captivating introduction, although less dramatic than that of “Field of Dreams.” It’s a funny kids movie, so let’s keep things light and not overthink it.

All of the actors who portrayed the “Sandlot” kids need to be part of this. Let’s have them all take the field one by one as Booker T. & The MGs’ “Green Onions” (that bouncy organ song from the movie) plays in the background, and have Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez come out last to receive the biggest ovation of all.

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Not only should Scotty Smalls throw out the ceremonial first pitch to Ham Porter at catcher, but Benny should steal home during the pitch. It’s the perfect way to kick off the action, along with Ham shouting his signature “Play Ball!” afterward.

As for other movie-specific details, there needs to be an English mastiff on hand as a homage to “The Beast,” a Babe Ruth impersonator wandering around and s’mores sold at every concession stand.

The participating teams should wear 1960s throwback uniforms and the in-stadium soundtrack must stick to songs from that era, along with David Newman’s outstanding film score.

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If we really wanted to go overboard with this, we could put a swimming pool on one side of the outfield and a couple of carnival rides on the other to pay tribute to each of the related, iconic scenes from the movie. That may be too much for just one game, but it’s fun to dream big.

And finally, the night should end with fireworks, although it would be much more appropriate if the fireworks went throughout the entire game.

Finding the right teams

So who should play in this game?

Logistically, the two participating teams should each come from the West Coast to help make travel easier. The most obvious choice for the home squad would be the Los Angeles Dodgers, considering that the film takes place in Southern California and ends with Benny playing for the club.

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Plus, the idea of superstars such as Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman coming to play in Utah would be an absolute thrill. If this is Utah’s one chance to host MLB action, we might as well be treated to the best of the best, and the Dodgers can deliver the goods.

The Dodgers’ opponent should probably come from the American League to avoid them having to play a critical division matchup in a neutral site. Of the AL West teams, the Rangers and Astros are both too far away from Utah, and the Angels likely won’t travel the nearly 700-mile journey just to play someone who is typically just 30 miles away — although former Salt Lake Bee Mike Trout playing in Utah again would be quite the storyline.

Thus, the Mariners and Athletics would be most convenient, with the M’s being preferable, considering they’re a better and more marketable team.

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However, the Mariners were established in 1977 and therefore did not exist in the movie’s 1962 setting, making the A’s — who previously flirted with playing in Utah — the only remaining option.

So there’s our matchup: Dodgers vs. Athletics, live in Utah and wearing 1960s throwback uniforms. It should be a heck of a ballgame, especially if the A’s break out these incredible era-appropriate threads.

Which Utah ballpark should become the new sandlot?

The site of the actual playing field from the movie is in Salt Lake City’s Glendale neighborhood, but it’s much too small to adequately allow for MLB competition and crowds.

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Luckily for us, Utah has multiple existing ballparks that could easily host the “Sandlot” classic.

For starters, there’s the new Ballpark at America First Square in Daybreak where the Bees currently play. It’s an awesome place to watch a game, but it might be just a bit too new and nice to stand in for the rough and tumble 1960s sandlot.

There’s also Lindquist Field in Ogden, where the Pioneer League’s Ogden Raptors play. Ogden is a rather appropriate choice, as the movie’s infamous pool scene was filmed there.

The ballpark itself is wonderful, intimate and captures the small-town feeling prevalent in “The Sandlot.” The outfield fence could easily be altered to appear more similar to that of the movie’s dusty old sandlot, and the view is majestic. Lindquist would be an excellent choice.

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But Smith’s Ballpark in Salt Lake City would be the perfect choice.

Smith’s is only 2 miles away from the actual sandlot site. Its 1300 South and West Temple location has been home to a number of different baseball teams for nearly a century. It’s one of the top sports landmarks Utah has to offer.

And it’s in its final days.

With the Bees’ move to Daybreak and the University of Utah opening its own on-campus baseball venue soon, Smith’s sits vacant, still in good shape but without a tenant to enjoy it.

Salt Lake City has plans to redevelop the 13.5-acre site in the near future, but if there’s any chance of being able to host this “Sandlot” game, the ballpark should remain intact just a bit longer for such an opportunity.

The most fitting end to a century of baseball on that site would be to allow the historic, beloved ballpark to host the first regular season Major League game ever played in the state of Utah. It’s only right.

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There’s a real appetite for an MLB team in Utah, and filling Smith’s Ballpark with 15,000 fans for a “Sandlot” game would help make that abundantly clear. If “Field of Dreams” was worthy of two specialty games, clearly “The Sandlot” deserves at least one of its own.

Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. said it best: “You could be a kid for as long as you want when you play baseball.” At its best, this sport can bring out a magical, youthful glee in all of us. That’s ultimately what “The Sandlot” is all about, and that’s what a specialty game based on the film would honor, celebrate and hopefully capture anew.

So let’s play ball — in Utah!

A man accused of brandishing a rifle at a “No Kings” rally in Utah — prompting an armed safety volunteer to open fire and accidentally kill a protester — has been released from jail while the investigation continues.

Salt Lake District Attorney Sim Gill’s office said Friday that it was unable to make a decision on charges against Arturo Gamboa, who had been jailed on suspicion of murder following the June 14 shooting.

Salt Lake City police had said Gamboa brought an assault-style rifle to the rally and was allegedly moving toward the crowd with the weapon raised when a safety volunteer for the event fired three shots, wounding Gamboa and killing a nearby demonstrator, Arthur Folasa Ah Loo.

Gamboa did not fire his rifle and it is unclear what he intended to do with it. His father Albert Gamboa, told The Associated Press earlier this week that his son was “an innocent guy” who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Utah is an open-carry state, meaning people who can legally own a firearm are generally allowed to carry it on a public street. The volunteer has not been publicly identified as investigators have worked to determine who was at fault.

Judge James Blanch said in the release order that Gamboa must live with his father and is forbidden from possessing firearms. The conditions terminate after two months or if criminal charges against him are pursued, Blanch wrote.

Gamboa’s attorney, Greg Skordas, did not immediately respond to a telephone message left for him seeking comment.

Police said the day after the shooting that witnesses reported seeing Gamboa lift the rifle when he was ordered to drop it and that instead he began running toward the crowd. He fled but was arrested nearby, accused of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death.

Salt Lake City police said in a statement the next day that Gamboa “knowingly engaged in conduct … that ultimately caused the death of an innocent community member.”

But three days after Gamboa was booked into jail, with no formal charges filed, police acknowledged that the circumstances surrounding the shooting remained uncertain. They issued a public appeal for any video footage related to the shooting or Gamboa, and said detectives were still trying “to piece together exactly what happened.”

The volunteer who confronted Gamboa was described by event organizers as a military veteran whose role as a safety volunteer was to maintain order.

Experts say it’s extremely rare for such individuals, often called safety marshals, to be armed. They typically rely on calm demeanor, communication and relationships with police and protesters to help keep order, said Edward Maguire, an Arizona State University criminology and criminal justice professor.

Police said the permit for the protest did not specify that there would be armed security.

Protest organizers have not said whether or how the safety volunteer who shot Ah Loo was trained or explained why he was armed. All attendees, including those in safety roles, were asked not to bring weapons, according to Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the 50501 Movement. Parker’s organization on Thursday said it was disassociating from a local chapter of the group that helped organize the Utah protest.

The demonstration involving some 18,000 people was otherwise peaceful. It was one of hundreds nationwide against President Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington, which marked the Army’s 250th anniversary and coincided with Trump’s birthday.

HERRIMAN, Utah (ABC4 Sports) – Coming off the biggest victory in franchise history, the Utah Warriors get another chance to make more history Saturday night.

The Warriors host the Houston Sabercats with the winner moving on to the Major League Rugby Championship game next week.

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Utah held on to beat the Seattle Seawolves last Saturday, 23-21, for its first playoff victory in its their 8-year history.

Warriors beat Seattle, advance to Western Conference Final

“It was huge,” said Warriors head coach Greg Cooper. “You could see the the elation from the crowd, the elation from the players. We talk a lot about representing Utah, and rugby is a big sport here.”

“It was an awesome feeling,” said Warriors player Aki Seiuli. “And the community is getting behind us and it’s great to see. The vibes are great.”

The Warriors know what is at stake tomorrow night at Zions Bank Stadium, a chance to advance to the championship game for the first time ever.

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“A little bit nervous, but it’s good nerves,” Seiuli said. “The main thing was we’re all excited, we’re ready for the challenge. Now it’s just really looking forward.”

The Sabercats beat the Warriors twice during the regular season, winning both games by at least 20 points. But Utah feels it is a different now, having won four straight games. Its last loss came against Houston on May 17th.

“They had a fast start in both of those games,” said Warriors player Tonga Kofe. “They have good players. I think the thing we’re going to learn is we can’t think we’re out of it. We’ve got to stay in it, keep our head down and work.”

“There’s some lessons we learned out of those games,” Cooper said. “So we know that will we will be better for it. We expect to lose some battles on the field. This is a quality Houston team, but this is a totally different team, and we are fresher than we were the last time we played.”

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If you thought last week’s atmosphere was loud, this week’s should be an all-timer, with the fans set to cheer on their team for the final time this season.

“Oh, it’s crazy,” Kofe said. “Every game it’s so loud. I it’s always packed out. I love home games. It’s super loud, super supportive, and there’s a lot of chirping going on. I love it.”

It’s been a remarkable turnaround for a Warriors team that failed to even make the postseason the last three seasons. Getting to a championship game would mean the world.

Utah Warriors excited about first ever home playoff game

“A lot of people have been here since day one,” said Seiuli. “There are a few players that have been here since the start. Not only will it be great for us, but also for them, because they’ve been here since day one. That’s something we wanted to complete and achieve.”

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“It will mean a lot, not just for our players, for all the hard work we put in, but I think for the fans,” said Kofe. “The fans been been with this team for a while now. Considering last year’s season, seeing that they’re still here supporting us, still showing us love, I think it’s more for them than it is for us.”

Utah and Houston will kick off at 7:00 p.m. Saturday at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. The winner will advance to the Major League Rugby Championship Game on June 28th in Rhode Island.

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.

PINE VALLEY, Utah (AP) — A fast-moving fire fueled by high winds on Friday has destroyed a dozen structures, including homes, and forced some in a rural area of southwest Utah to evacuate.

The Forsyth Fire started Thursday in the Pine Valley Mountains and has already burned about 2.3 square miles (5.96 square kilometers), said Karl Hunt, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands. It has forced people to evacuate from the Pine Valley Community and nearby campgrounds, although the number of people who have fled was not immediately clear.

The blaze, which is about 15 miles (24.1 kilometers) northeast of St. George and includes steep, mountainous terrain, has also threatened 400 structures.

By Friday evening, the fire remained uncontained despite 150 people battling the blaze, including two hotshot crews from Utah and Nevada, according to Hunt. Teams were using helicopters, more than a dozen engines and water tenders.

The cause of the fire has not been determined and is under investigation, Hunt said.

He urged the public to stay away, saying: “Let the firefighters do what they do best and try to get this fire under control.”

There has been a red flag warning in the area since Thursday because of high wind gusts, low humidity and high temperatures.

Hunt said the blaze came fairly early in the year, following a drought declaration by Utah’s governor.

“So the fuel is drier this year as well. And so if you combine the drier fuel with the high winds and it’s ripe for a wildfire,” he said. “Kind of like the perfect storm.”

There have been no injuries or deaths, according to Hunt.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said on the social media site X that they are closely monitoring the fire and urged the public to follow local officials’ instructions.

“If you’re in the area, please evacuate immediately,” he said. “First responders are doing heroic work, but they need your cooperation to save lives.”

The Utah Warriors punched their ticket to Major League Rugby’s conference finals after beating the Seattle Seawolves 23-21 at home last Saturday in a nail biter of a match.

With his team now on the precipice of winning its first-ever Major League Rugby title, head coach Greg Cooper spoke to the media on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming conference final.

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Cooper had said that before the season started, he set a goal for the team to finish in the top two of its conference, so it could host a home playoff match.

That might have been seen as wishful thinking after the Warriors finished 5-11 last season, but it’s part of Cooper’s mentality to never give up.

“I don’t know how many games I’ve been involved with (in) my 20 plus years as a professional coach, but I’ve never jumped on a plane, I’ve never jumped on a bus, I’ve never gone to a game thinking I can’t win, that my team can’t win,” Cooper said.

The Utah Warriors 2025 season

The Warriors exceeded Cooper’s goal, securing the No. 1 seed in its conference, winning its first-ever playoff game and earning a spot in the conference final.

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Cooper said this year’s preseason was “probably the hardest first week I’ve ever experienced” in his two decades of coaching in New Zealand, Japan, France and now the U.S.

“We went hard from the start. You know, a little bit of a situation where we could have broken players early, but we didn’t. So, we pushed them to the limits, physically, mentally,” he said.

While there were some electrifying wins for the Warriors this season, some of the most impactful moments for the team came from its losses, according to Cooper.

“When we drop the game, we actually got learnings out of it. We got stronger through those learnings. Sometimes the thinkers are actually one of the best things you could possibly have because sometimes when you’re going along and winning, you tend to not look at things you might be doing wrong,” he said.

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Cooper considers the loss to New England one of those impactful losses, as well as a turning point for the team to learn how to recover after a momentum loss.

Utah Warriors who have stood out in 2025

The Deseret News asked Cooper which players showed improvement and which stepped up as leaders this season. Cooper was quick to single out rookie Cole Semu from BYU, whom the Warriors drafted No. 28 overall last summer in the college draft.

Cooper thought this would be a learning season for Semu and didn’t expect him to play much, but the rookie has played in 10 games for the Warriors.

“He was put under the pump. He played some difficult games against some quality opposition. So, I have to single Cole out for a guy that came from (the) draft. He’s a local boy — BYU — and a remarkable story to see someone with so little experience stand up the way he did,” Cooper said.

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The head coach also praised lock forward Gavin Thornbury, who joined the team in the offseason after spending the majority of his career with Ireland’s Connacht Rugby, for his leadership.

“In terms of standing up as a leader, Gavin Thornbury has been phenomenal. He’s had his share of injuries, but when he hasn’t been on the field, he’s led by example, off the field as well,” he said.

The Warriors host the Houston Sabercats at home in Zions Bank Stadium in the conference final on Saturday at 7 p.m. MDT.

A win would punch a ticket to Rhode Island for the championship and put the Warriors at the doorstep of making team history.

Note to readers • The following story is Part 2 of two stories reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune and support from the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Read Part 1 here.

As Utah continued its trend of violating federal air pollution limits, state air quality officials asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for help in 2017.

On NOAA’s first day of data collection, aimed at better understanding the atmospheric chemistry above the state, an airplane flew over US Magnesium in Tooele County. It picked up some of the highest levels of halogens — a group of chemicals including chlorine — that the agency has ever measured.

That finding, revealed in a study published in 2023, has been debated ever since — from its accuracy to what it should mean for how the state governs Utah’s air quality.

This spring, Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore claimed a victory when Gov. Spencer Cox signed HB420 into law, giving the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ) new authority to regulate the emission of halogens.

Halogens include chemicals whose interaction in the environment “worsens our winter inversions on the Wasatch Front by 10 to 25%,” said Cullimore, R-Cottonwood Heights, who sponsored the bill.

But it’s not yet clear whether HB420 will result in any additional, independent monitoring of air quality near the magnesium plant — the absence of which has already impacted research into Utah’s persistently poor air quality.

Federal and state regulation of US Magnesium relies significantly on self-reports from the company about its emissions. And even if the state installed air monitors near US Magnesium, it’s unlikely that they would pick up everything — because sensors capable of detecting all of its halogen emissions in real time were only recently invented, according to Jessica Haskins, an assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Utah.

Scientists have brought these devices to the state for research purposes, but only temporarily, she said. Permanently installing a monitor capable of measuring all of the plant’s halogen emissions would cost the state about $1 million, Haskins estimated, which she suspects would be outside the state’s budget.

HB420 did not include specific directives about how monitoring related to the bill should be carried out, DAQ spokesperson Ashley Sumner said, adding that the division is still weighing its options.

The air quality monitors currently nearest to US Magnesium, Sumner said, are located in the town of Erda, on a site state regulators selected because they believed it to be representative of the average conditions experienced by the majority of Tooele Valley residents. Air monitoring is focused, per federal regulation, on the state’s most populous areas, she said.

For now, US Magnesium has idled the plant following equipment breakdowns and a drop in lithium prices.

The question of bromine

When NOAA began the study in 2017, it didn’t plan to look specifically at US Magnesium, according to Carrie Womack, a researcher in the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and one of the lead authors on the 2023 report.

Instead, it was responding to Utah’s DAQ query about why years of attempts to improve the state’s air quality weren’t curbing the trend of federal air pollution violations.

The emissions that NOAA measured on that first day matched what US Magnesium had reported about its releases of chlorine, specifically, Womack said. But the mining company’s monitoring didn’t capture the release of another halogen, bromine, because air quality regulations at the time did not require tracking or reporting it.

And that chemical turned out to be responsible for a good deal of the chemical reaction causing the state’s poor winter air quality, according to NOAA’s research. It concluded that emissions from US Magnesium’s West Desert facility could account for as much as a quarter of the small particulate pollution that famously accumulates in Utah’s air most winters.

But US Magnesium believes the study’s conclusions are “non-factual and … based on a series of poorly executed measurements, estimates, and conclusions,” the company said in an April 1 statement signed by CEO Ron Thayer and Rob Hartman, its environmental manager.

The company said it has hired a third-party engineering firm to conduct its own study of the company’s emissions and their impact on local air quality.

While it is accurate that US Magnesium is the only significant source of halogens in the area, Thayer and Hartman said, data from the DAQ show no direct correlation between its emissions and the state’s overall air quality.

“As USM production has decreased over the last eight years,” Thayer and Hartman said, “the average Salt Lake Valley smog related particulates have remained consistent.”

Indeed, the plant’s shutdown of magnesium mining in 2022 and of lithium mining last year have had no apparent impact on air quality trends in northern Utah, according to the state DAQ. State monitors have never observed a correlation between overall air quality in the state and daily operations at US Magnesium, Sumner said.

A complex equation

Womack said this is to be expected. The relationship between US Magnesium’s halogen emissions and wintertime particulate pollution is complex, and dependent on other factors such as temperature and snowfall, she said.

The presence of pollutants from other sources, such as cars and wildfires, also changes the equation. Barring an unlikely, exact repeat of the conditions seen in the winter of 2017, it’s improbable that a correlation with US Magnesium’s operations would show up in day-to-day air quality trends, Womack said.

She also noted that the study only considered data from 2017, a year when US Magnesium reported higher-than-usual chlorine emissions. Because the company did not report bromine emissions at the time, it’s difficult to say whether bromine emissions were also elevated in 2017, Womack said.

But if they were, it is possible that the resulting calculations by NOAA represent uncharacteristically high emissions by US Magnesium — and an inaccurate snapshot of its contributions to air quality in normal years.

These facts point to a need for greater, long-term study of emissions and air chemistry in Utah, Womack said, though she says the agency stands by its conclusions about the company’s contributions to air pollution in Utah.

“That was interesting to us because it’s not that often that you come across a source you didn’t know was there emitting a huge amount of something that has a negative impact on air quality,” Womack said, adding that NOAA took its time with analyzing the data after its collection to ensure its figures were accurate.

How Utah has and hasn’t taken action

The NOAA study triggered a push in 2023 by regulators and state lawmakers to pass a law that would impose limits on emissions of bromine from US Magnesium, but HB220 was ultimately rewritten to require a broader study of halogen emissions in northern Utah.

The Renco Group, US Magnesium’s parent company, gave $50,000 to Cox’s reelection campaign after the bill was rewritten, although US Magnesium said the donation was probably a routine expression of support for Cox’s larger policies by its parent company.

“USM has NEVER solicited assistance from Governor Cox regarding air quality regulations or proposed State emissions legislation,” Hartman and Thayer said. In a previous statement about the donation, a spokesperson for Cox noted: “The governor has no control over who chooses to contribute to his campaign.”

State lawmakers returned to the issue this year with the passage of HB420.

In a separate email to the Utah Investigative Journalism Project, Thayer said that unlike the first proposed law, this new law took a recommendation “periodically promoted by [US Magnesium] in the past” into account, by requiring the company to install “additional ducting to collect and treat one chlorine containing vapor stream in the magnesium plant.”

Thayer later clarified that the additional ducting in question would “process chlorine during downtime hours on the chlorine reduction burner,” which is a critical control device responsible for limiting chlorine emissions.

A sweeping notice of violation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency against US Magnesium in March 2023 focused on the chlorine reduction burner. It alleged the plant operated between January 2016 and July 2022 with the burner offline some 1,100 times — resulting in chlorine emissions in excess of the company’s permit during those years.

No further action has occurred, an EPA spokesperson said, because US Magnesium’s plant had been closed for months when the notice was issued.

HB420 does not specify what, exactly, US Magnesium must install to control emissions. The bill refers to “halogens” broadly and not to bromine specifically, and calls for the Utah DAQ to analyze which technologies or pollution control systems might best address halogen emissions — likely opening the door to the exact solution described by Thayer.

However, Thayer also said that “none of this is relevant at this time” because the plant is no longer operating, and the ducting in question would only be installed “should” the company decide to restart the plant.

The continuing challenge

Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of HEAL Utah, said she hopes that funding associated with HB420 will prove large enough to install regulatory-grade monitors closer to US Magnesium.

The longstanding lack of independent, granular data on the company’s emissions presents a huge barrier to identifying regulatory actions that could help improve Utah’s air quality, she said.

The magnesium plant has been essentially protected by the region’s remoteness, low population and its longstanding use as an environmental “sacrifice zone” by the U.S. military, she said, which historically worked to discredit the concerns of Tooele residents in order to avoid criticism of its own operations there.

Tooele County was previously identified as a “Justice40” community, a designation for census tracts with significant historical environmental harms due to the presence of things like abandoned mine or military sites.

The initiative ensured that at least 40% of certain federal incentives — such as investments in affordable housing or electric school buses — went to such areas. An executive order signed by President Donald Trump ended the Justice40 program in January.

And since then, the Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration has said it is reconsidering whether the northern Wasatch Front should have to adhere to strict federal air quality standards for ozone.

“That area in Tooele and Grantsville, where HEAL was founded, has been particularly hard hit over the decades, between the Dugway Proving Ground, the biological agents that were tested in the area, the incineration of chemical weapons including things like nerve gas, and the [nuclear waste] storage facilities out at Energy Solutions,” Tuddenham said.

The lack of a large public outcry about emissions from US Magnesium “represents what always happens — people with less political power and less money get less voice,” she said. “ … And it’s just devastating, but unsurprising, that these things are still happening.”

This article was first published in the Ute Insiders newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.

Year 2 in the Big 12 doesn’t get much easier for the Utah Utes.

After a 5-7 campaign in an injury-riddled inaugural year in the new conference, Utah is trying to get back to its winning way — but the Utes won’t have a whole lot of “gimmes” in 2025.

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When you take a look at any strength of schedule rating, from Phil Steele to ESPN, Utah’s schedule ranks among the upper half of college football’s most difficult schedules.

In his annual preview, Steele — who touts Utah as a Big 12 contender this season — ranked the Utes’ schedule as the 38th-toughest in the nation, and the seventh-toughest in the Big 12.

ESPN slots Utah’s schedule as the 58th-toughest in the nation and the sixth-hardest in the Big 12, and College Football News has the Utes’ schedule as the 27th-hardest in the country.

In 2022 and 2023, the Utes opened against Florida. After playing Southern Utah to open the 2024 season, Utah will travel west to Los Angeles for another Power Four game to open the 2025 slate.

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The Utes kick off the year in the Rose Bowl against UCLA, and though the Bruins aren’t picked to win the Big Ten this season, adding former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava — one of the nation’s top transfers — makes this game one of the more intriguing contests to open up Week 1.

Both teams will be featuring new offensive coordinators and new quarterbacks, and though it will make for an interesting showdown, it’s a tough game to open up the season.

The closest thing to a guaranteed win on the schedule comes the next week against Cal Poly, and after that, the Utes make the drive to Laramie to play at Wyoming for the first time since 2010.

Utah should be the better team — Wyoming comes off of a 3-9 season — but winning at War Memorial Stadium isn’t easy.

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The Utes’ Big 12 schedule then hits fast, with Texas Tech opening the conference slate at Rice-Eccles Stadium. The Red Raiders put together one of the nation’s best transfer classes after last year’s 8-5 showing, including Stanford edge rusher David Bailey and North Carolina offensive tackle Howard Sampson.

Texas Tech will be an early test for the Utes and could tell us a lot about the 2025 squad.

Other tough Big 12 games include a trip to Provo where the Utes will try to knock off BYU for the first time in three tries, a visit to Waco against a Baylor team that could make some noise in the Big 12 title race, a matchup at Rice-Eccles Stadium against Big 12 champion Arizona State and a home game against Kansas State on Nov. 22.

The rivalry game against the Cougars — no matter if starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff will play or not — is always the most emotionally-charged game on the schedule. After an 11-2 season last year, BYU could be in the mix for the Big 12 title again, as the Cougars play one of the easier schedules in college football.

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Baylor is projected to make a jump, returning 15 starters, including quarterback Sawyer Robertson. Last season, the Bears rebounded from a 2-4 start, winning six consecutive games behind good performances from Robertson.

Utah escaped Waco in 2023 with some late-game magic from Nate Johnson, but this year’s Baylor squad will make the Nov. 15 visit one of the toughest on Utah’s schedule.

Kansas State, which was right in the thick of contention down the stretch last season, is the favorite by the majority of publications to win this year’s Big 12 title, led by quarterback Avery Johnson, a strong defensive line and a great linebacker unit captained by Austin Romaine.

Arizona State, last year’s Big 12 champion, will also be a tough out. The Sun Devils do lose a huge chunk of their offensive production as running back Cam Skattebo was drafted by the New York Giants, but they return starting quarterback Sam Leavitt and nearly every other starter from last year’s team on both sides of the ball.

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If the Sun Devils can replace Skattebo’s production by committee, they could be looking at a second straight trip to the Big 12 title game.

Both Utah and ASU will be coming off of byes and will be well-rested for the midseason clash.

Five of Utah’s nine Big 12 games will come against teams projected to finish in the top seven in the conference or above by many national publications.

In addition, the Utes don’t face several teams projected to be at the bottom of the conference, including UCF and Arizona.

But even a trip to Morgantown to play West Virginia, a team that is projected by most publications near the bottom of the Big 12 with a new head coach — Rich Rodriguez — and a brand-new roster, is no easy task.

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That being said, trying to project strength of schedule and conference finish two months before the season starts is a futile task.

In last year’s Big 12 preseason media poll, the Utes were picked to finish first, and the eventual champions, Arizona State, were picked dead last, so take preseason projections with a heavy grain of salt.

Utah Utes 2025 schedule

Aug. 30: at UCLA

Sept. 6: vs Cal Poly

Sept. 13: at Wyoming

Sept. 20: vs Texas Tech

Sept. 27: at West Virginia

Oct. 11: vs Arizona State

Oct. 18: at BYU

Oct. 25: vs Colorado

Nov. 1: vs Cincinnati

Nov. 15: at Baylor

Nov. 22: vs Kansas State

Nov. 28: at Kansas

In case you missed it

The Utes will receive a visit from one of the top prospects in the country. Five-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo, who has visited Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Florida and Colorado, will take a trip to Salt Lake City this weekend.

From the archives

Extra points

The Mesa County sheriff’s deputy who shared with federal officials information about a Utah college student he pulled over, leading to her arrest by immigration agents, is on administrative leave.

Investigator Alexander Zwinck pulled over 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves on June 5 on Interstate 70 near Loma because she was following a tractor-trailer too closely, according to the sheriff’s ofice.

Zwinck let Dias Goncalves go with a warning, but he shared information about the traffic stop in a Signal group chat used by local and federal law enforcement for drug trafficking.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Dias Goncalves a short time later in Grand Junction and took her to the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, where she has been detained for two weeks.

Dias Goncalves, who attends the University of Utah, came to the U.S. from Brazil with her family when she was 7 and overstayed a tourist visa. She has a pending asylum application, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

An immigration judge granted bail in Dias Goncalves’ case, and she is expected to be released in the coming days, her attorney said Wednesday.

Zwinck was put on leave while the sheriff’s office investigates the incident, the agency said in a statement Thursday. Colorado law prohibits local law enforcement from working with federal agents on civil immigration enforcement.

After the fatal shooting at Saturday’s “No Kings” march in downtown Salt Lake City, investigators are examining the roles of two people who were armed: one jailed for carrying a rifle he never fired, and another who shot and killed an innocent bystander, later telling police he was acting as a “peacekeeper.”

Utahns have a right to carry guns — openly or concealed — even at a protest, but they are also responsible for what happens when they fire those weapons, experts told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Utah is a constitutional carry state, which means that adults 21 and older who are legally allowed to possess a firearm can carry it openly or concealed without a permit, including in public spaces, said Skye Lazaro, a criminal defense attorney. Also, those between 18 to 20 can only openly carry an unloaded firearm in public without a provisional carry permit, she said.

There are some restrictions, Lazaro said, for open carry without a permit, such as prohibitions on carrying firearms on the premises of elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, institutions of higher education, daycare centers, airports, houses of worship or any other places prohibited by state or federal law.

Still, days after the deadly shooting, many unanswered questions remain about the actions of both men, regarding what happened June 14 and who is responsible for the death of Utah fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, said Clark Aposhian, board chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council and a gun-rights lobbyist.

Ah Loo, known as “Afa” to friends and family, was shot and killed at Saturday’s “No Kings” protest on State Street. Police said Ah Loo was not the intended target of the gunshots, but was fatally wounded after a member of the protest’s ”peacekeeping team” fired at another man, Arturo Gamboa, who police said was running into the crowd of protesters with a rifle drawn.

“You can, in fact, carry an AR-15 in a parade, in a public area,” Aposhian said, who teaches concealed weapons classes. “And that, in and of itself, is legal and cannot be considered even disorderly conduct.”

However, he explained, if you begin “pointing it around” or using it in a threatening way, that could cross the line into disorderly conduct, brandishing or even aggravated assault.

Carrying is legal, but how you carry and act with the weapon matters a great deal, he said.

“You have to do quite a few things with that firearm for it to be a crime,” Aposhian continued. “And I mean, you’ve got to display it with the intent to intimidate in a non-self-defense situation, in an angry or threatening manner and the presence of two or more people. It sounds like it could have risen to that.”

Aposhian, who has studied gun-rights issues and lobbied for gun rights for years but is not an attorney, said the legality of Gamboa’s handling of the rifle and the peacekeeper’s decision to fire largely depend on where the gun’s barrel was pointed.

Under Utah law, any weapon carried by a person with ill intent, or the intent to harm another person, is considered illegal and a class A misdemeanor.

“If I’m just running with a gun and it’s otherwise pointed down, then, no, I’m just running and I happen to have a firearm,” Aposhian said. “But if I’m running and the weapon is pointed at the crowd, … I think it’s going to be perceived that I have some ill intent, and other people would be likely to respond to me, especially in these heady days of active shooters and the very politically and violence-charged parades and events.”

Lazaro said Utah law allows a person to use deadly force for the purpose of self-defense or acting in the defense of others.

However, Aposhian and Lazaro said, the peacekeeper does not have qualified immunity — as police officers do under Utah law for actions that happen when they’re on the job — and could be held both civilly and criminally liable for Ah Loo’s death.

A key factor in determining civil liability, Lazaro said, is whether the use of force was reasonable and necessary under the circumstances. In this case, she noted, that analysis may hinge on what’s considered reasonable when a crowd is present.

“It’s one thing if they just shoot [Gamboa], because then it just becomes a self-defense analysis,” Lazaro said. “But now we have this innocent person who’s unfortunately passed away, and that complicates it.”

Some who have marched with Gamboa in the past said he regularly carried his rifle at protests without incident.

Still, Lazaro said some legal questions will likely center on Gamboa’s intent and how he handled the weapon during the march.

Armed citizens are often the first to engage before police arrive, Aposhian said, as was the case at Saturday’s rally. Although police were monitoring the event, officers were not immediately on the scene to intervene in the confrontation between the peacekeepers and Gamboa.

“I think, honestly, the peacekeeper probably thought that he was saving lives, and he may, in fact, have,” Aposhian said. “We don’t know what the intentions of the guy with the AR-15 were.”

Salt Lake City police said “peacekeeper” isn’t a formal designation they recognize, and the protest’s event permit included no mention of organized or armed security. The march was organized by Utah 50501, an activist group named for its call to mobilize protests in all 50 states. The group has led demonstrations in more than 2,000 cities and towns nationwide. Utah 50501, in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune this week, identified the shooter as a “safety volunteer.”

The Black Lives Matter Utah Chapter released a statement Monday on Facebook in response to the No Kings rally shooting. The group voiced support for the right to carry guns, especially for self-protection at protests.

“We have openly carried guns at protests because we have a right to do so,” the organization wrote, noting that members attend gun handler training sessions and are informed on their rights to carry. The group recommended people get advice from an expert to “get an understanding of how to be safe with and near guns.”