A Response to “An Open Letter to Tom Love, Owner of Love’s Truck Stops,” published Sept. 12, 2019
Listen, can you hear it? Leaves rustling with the last of the summer breeze, occasional crickets call in the cover of darkness that soon will cloak the two counties of San Juan and Grand.
Here on Sunny Acres Lane, I still do hear those sounds as I step out into my back yard to breathe in the evening air and watch the evening stars explode into the Milky Way. There are fewer and fewer places on our planet today where folks can still have what once was taken for granted. A place where peace still resides in the creases of backyards, a place we all can all find that special place to connect to our souls.
Visitors from around the globe know that, they come here to look for it, they pay very well to come and be a part of it. They come to Moab because it still has it.
Suddenly, in March of this year, myself and my neighbors on Sunny Acres Lane became aware of an impending sale by SITLA for a Love’s Truck Stop. The 13-acre truck plaza will have room for 53 idling trucks and 90 parking spaces for cars and RVs to be put in behind our homes.
We have been speaking with San Juan County Planning and Zoning, County Commissioners, Health Department, E.P.A., businessmen of SITLA and Love’s in hopes of resolving why a huge truck plaza would be placed where so many residents live, a place where many homes have been in residential or agricultural zones. Homes for which the value would plummet like the heavy fumes of the diesel truck exhaust that are constantly emitted on a cold winter day. We are asking why, when even Salt Lake City requires a 500-foot buffer, SITLA allows a 25-foot buffer here.
Majestic is the word when I look upon the canyon rim before me across Highway 191. I do not know how its echo will respond to constant sounds of truck brakes, engines bearing down or revving going uphill. How will the tall sandstone hold in the fumes that hold carcinogens that can harm human and animal alike. How will the stone walls reflect the glow of Love’s lights? Will the stars of the Milky Way still shine? Most likely not. Yes, truck stops do have crime. Especially near towns, I know, been there done that. I was a city cop. I wish you well, I wish you the ability to enjoy life and come visit us again. Most of all I do not wish a truck stop in your backyard. The gas may be a few cents cheaper for you, but the overall cost is very expensive to those who actually LIVE here.
Sincerely,
Susan Baril, Moab
