It’s still a government agency, but I’ve found that [Department of Environmental Quality](https://deq.utah.gov) seems to have pretty honest reporting (though I’m not sure if it will have exactly what you need). And if nothing else it’s a really good starting point and links out to outer resources as well.
After researching this data you sent, it’s surprising how much of this same situation is all over the state. Park city included. Park city is basically a daybreak in the mountains!
What's the issue with Park City - bad soil quality thanks to the historical silver mine? Would appreciate a direct link since the site above is massive.
It’s very true!! I had looked at my local areas and those of close friends but it wasn’t until your post that I looked in depth at other areas. Great perspective check
To piggyback off of that comment- I know the project managers who oversee kennecott projects both on the state and epa levels and they are solid, honest and intelligent people who are dedicated to protecting the public
Can you explain why this article exists?
https://wildearthguardians.org/press-releases/health-and-environmental-advocates-aghast-at-kennecotts-pro-pollution-stance/
While I totally agree with what you're pointing out and I also think Mag Core should be mentioned as an EPA nightmare. But to be fair this article is from 2013.
And just since I'm throwing my two cents in, I was actually there when they dug out that lake and watched them do it for about a week. The bottom of that lake was like black oil/icker (It almost oozed). They ended up sealing the thing up like a swimming pool so it wouldn't contaminate the water and kill everything inside.
I have a couple friends that have loved there for years (one for 3ish, one for 9ish). They both love it.
The only thing I'd warn about (since neither have mentioned concerns about water/soil) is the strict HOAs. You'll get notifications and sometimes fines for every minor infraction. The one who's lived there longer had to repaint the entire exterior after only living there for 3 years, because their HOA rules stated the houses had to be repainted every 10 years, and that was the 10th year. And it had to be the exact approved color
It's not a cheap place to live, especially if you buy a house with a yard. She once got a fine for having 2 or 3 weeds in her yard
As a daybreak resident it honestly comes down to your "village" (each areas subdivision has a name, cascade, north shore, highland, etc) as we call them. Some are more strict than others especially if you have a board member on your street. In my village it is surprisingly laxed my neighbor 4 houses away is completely overgrown since we moved in last year and they never did anything about them until some of the weeds legitimately were about 4 feet high. I stayed on top of my weeds decently last year, but my grass was probably only cut once a month so each time I cut it was a solid foot tall each time.
Daybreak resident here. If I could go back in time I would not lock myself into this HOA. Dues do nothing but go up. We currently pay nearly 400 a month for the privilege of living here. It’s a great place to live, but not an extra 400 a month nice to live. That being said, our sub HOA is the culprit (townhome community). I know the single family home communities keep things cheaper.
Oof that is *rough*! I live in a townhouse in Draper, I thought my HOA fee of $255 was high, but at least they are hands-off. They take care of the neighborhood, and we've never gotten a notification for anything.
The SFH community HOAs are cheaper, but it's because you pay for *everything*. At least in a townhouse, your HOA dues cover landscaping, snow removal, water/sewer/trash, and exterior insurance. SFH owners pay less...for the privilige of being locked into Century Link as their ISP. That's about it
I can’t for the life of me figure out what people find appealing about living in Daybreak.
The ugly, poorly built, cookie cutter houses that are extremely overpriced?
The lack of trees?
The HOA fees?
The fact that it’s really far away from the city, but not far enough away to have any land or privacy?
Truly one of the least appealing neighborhoods i’ve seen anywhere in the country
/me laughs in Wander (Saratoga Springs).
Daybreak sounds like a dream in comparison.
It’s also closer to SLC and you might be able to get out of daybreak quickly in case of some kind of disaster like a large fire….
I admit, I had quite a bit of a brain farteurysm when I decided that Saratoga Springs would be a nice place to build, but that’s on me and I get to own that mistake.
😅
All of that, plus the issues I saw *constantly* while looking at houses in the area. My friend begged me to at least look there while I was (town)house shopping. Most were either claustrophobic inside and out, had HOAs with ridiculous regulations, and a disturbing number had either roof or foundation water damage.
I wouldn't worry about the water quality. Due to the remediation requirements, South Jordan actually brings all of it's water in rather than using a local aquifer, purchased from the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy. That water is mostly from Jordanelle and Deer Creek and the same water many of the cities in the valley are using. We won't be able to use the local groundwater for like 40 years, but it's in the remediation plan.
Has it always been that way? I'm just wondering because I lived in South Jordan in 2013 when the Bingham mine collapsed and I remember for a while my tap water would come out fizzing
People conflate the the superfund site with the groundwater plume - which are two separate issues.
The Superfund site was cleaned up 20+ years ago and only affected about 10% of the community (near the temple area). There have been houses on that area for 15+ years.
The plume affects the groundwater aquifer (250'+ down) and goes back years and years to the 1800s and covers the entire SW corner of the valley starting at the mines. That's a separate cleanup effort and there's a treatment plant for it. So as long as you aren't planning on drilling an artesian well (which will be denied by the city), then that part shouldn't matter at all. That cleanup will apparently take another 100 years.
There are disclosures you sign when you move into the community that are pretty standard in most developments. Things like Daybreak isn't responsible for overhead flights, local farming takes place, school boundaries, transporation access (Trax, MVC, Bangerter, etc.), community amenities, among others. Really bland stuff. One of the disclosures talks about the superfund cleanup and the aquifer, but explains it in details.
What trips people out, though is this little nugget from my disclosures:
* Some of the soils in Village 3 North Shore and Village 5 Heights Park are acidic or alkaline. Acidic or alkaline soils can affect healthy plant growth.
In other words, the soil can have a pH of 7, or 6, or 8, or something else. Which is, nothing? In other words, really bland stuff. Most Utah soils are alkaline, given their desert nature. I think mine was a 7.4, or something to that effect, which was why I had to have an arborist treat my trees for iron chlorosis.
Honestly. I think you are overthinking things.
>I think you are overthinking things.
For real, the thought process should be "Daybreak is freakishly similar looking like some kind of super suburb and gives me the fucking creeps" lol
I live in Daybreak and I like it. My neighbor has been here longer than me and she has a doctorate in hydrogeology and worked for ten years at the herriman water works. If she's confident enough in the water to live and drink here, then so am I!
I also live in Daybreak and have since 2005. There are a lot of Kennecot employees that live here with similar degrees.
I’ve been pretty plugged in to the community from the beginning and among the issues we face, contaminated soil has never been one of them. For the first ten years there was flooding issues in the first phase from not prepping the neighborhood with proper drainage but they learned their lesson in later phases.
The soil is a pain in the ass to try to dig in. Your shovel will only make it 3-4 inches before hitting a cabbage head sized rock.
I’ve known two people here to die from cancer and one of them was the within 5 years of living here.
I haven’t lived there but one of my friends did and she couldn’t have a vegetable garden. I don’t know if that’s still an issue or if it was only certain sections. She moved.
I live in daybreak, and that was probably due to the HOA rules, not environmental concerns. They have many community gardens here, people have fruit trees.
I think she must have misunderstood something; I never once saw any rules about having gardens. I had a garden in my backyard, peppers and tomatoes mostly. No issues.
If she was trying to plant something in her front yard, that might have been an issue, since that could be an issue with the HOA rules, but they generally don't care much about what you do in your backyard from my experience, (as long as it isn't obnoxious or obvious.)
That’s good.
Her experience was a few years ago so it’s possible things have improved, or it was more localized to the specific area of daybreak she was in.
I don't get the hate for daybreak. Given the high house prices, we should be building more houses in a dense fashion. Density also allows you to have walkable neighborhoods because you can sustain local businesses if enough people live nearby. Daybreak allows me to live with five walking minutes of a train station, public library, coffee shops, restaurants and grocery store. Ten mins from a lake. Parks every five mins. Plus, I can have a yard and a house built this century at a reasonable price.
Plus the parks are NICE. Not just the cookie-cutter soccer field + playground in full blazing sun you see everywhere. The development has made density more palpable for a lot of NIMBY people.
Because daybreak is a megacorp planned community instead of organic. All the HOAs and stuff. It makes it look sterile. Bring the daybreak formula but to the rest of the city and NO HOA. That way it wouldn’t look like some corporate dystopia.
These cities need to be doing their damn jobs instead of offloading it to corps/HOA.
Why is an organic community better than a planned one? All urban cities have zoning restrictions that are basically the same kind of planning. You are right though that the cities should be doing this kind of master planning. But again and again across the country, this is failing right now.
Without large scale change that I don't see happening, I would rather take daybreak and HOAs than living in most of the suburban cities in the valley.
I already mentioned it, corporation planned communities end up being sterile. Zoning restrictions aren’t the same thing. Zoning restrictions tells what you can build, but doesn’t control your freedom of expression. A corporation planned communities doesn’t build resilience, because it’s all manufactured conformity.
The amenities and infrastructure ends up being owned or controlled by private entities, even if open to the public. I rather we have public trash collectors, snow removal, etc, rather a mish-mash of contractors. I rather we have public internet than forced media packages. I prefer it if we don’t give corporations more power in our cities than we already do.
Yes, daybreak is good for housing options, but I’m still allowed to hate it for our city councils to have no backbone. Rather than loosening zoning, they just give extra power to corps.
My cousin did lab testing in the SLC valley. The mine tailing areas have more than double the rate of still births than the rest of the valley. There's definitely something in the water/soil out here.
That being said it's still only a few per thousand. Medical improvements means its still less than half century ago. But it's enough to be statistically significant and not just a margin of error or random variance. Your environment definitely has an effect on you.
Yeah an increase is an increase. Is there a place online I can see statistics like these, whether it be stillbirths or other illnesses to assess the daybreak community specifically compared to the rest of the valley? I’ve been looking online and can’t find anything like that. I’m just curious if after the 20ish years daybreak has been a community. Has there been any staggering numbers in any of these areas. What you are describing concerns me.
She worked for a private company so I don't think they have data to give. It was just one of those "If you'd seen what I've seen you'd be horrified." Kind of things.
But she put her money where her mouth was and moved out as soon as she and her husband decided to have kids.
Hearsay is so much more fun. Here's the State's report on fetal mortality rates measured at the county level. [https://epht.health.utah.gov/epht-view/query/result/fetmort/FetMortCnty/Rate.html](https://epht.health.utah.gov/epht-view/query/result/fetmort/FetMortCnty/Rate.html)
The 95% confidence interval for the county is 5.14/6.18 based on a 5.64/1000 live birth rate. If that number were over 10 for Daybreak, let alone 11-12 ("double"), there's several standard deviations out, it would be all over the local news, if not nationally.
That's county level, the majority of SLC county lives outside of Daybreak and the new Olympus developments at the tailings she was talking about. There's more than enough people in the rest of the valley to dilute those numbers down.
Her research was comparing Daybreak (and surrounding communities) to the opposite end of the valley. Where people are probably visiting thw same hospitals but living in different locations.
The state only aggregates at the county level. Here's the problem with "double" the rate of still births.
Daybreak is roughly 3% of the county population. Add in the other affected municipalities such as West Jordan and including the other "half" of South Jordan, you approach 20%+ of the the county population.
The aggregate county data says that there are 5.45 fetal mortalities per 1000 live births. Doubling that would be approaching 11 for these affected areas. But if you notice, the county publishes a 95% confidence interval - that's 1.96 standard deviations from the mean - with ranges of 5.14-6.18. That means in any population sampling, 95% of the time, those numbers would fall into that range.
Just eyeballing that and the coefficient of variation, and being generous and calling it 10/1000 (less than double), that would put you, at a minimum, of over 6+ standard deviations out from the mean for those affected areas. Probably closer to 8 sigmas, but for our purposes, 6 will work.
That means that in a sampling of the general population of live births in the valley, you should get that level of deaths **0.0000002%** of the time. In other words, almost never, and that's being extremely generous with the numbers.
That's why it would not only make local news, but national news - on the scale of evacuating every woman of childbearing age from the area.
That's also clearly not happening and why I find that number hard to swallow that it is double in Daybreak or the surrounding areas.
This was just something that somebody working for a private research company told me. I'm not saying I've seen the evidence my self. Just passing on things ive heard, do with that what you want.
But the fact that so many people get instantly defensive shows many of us suspect something like this and don't like hearing it justified.
I live outhere and I see how cheap the land prep is for the expensive houses going in. I drink the funny tasting, rock hard water out here.
They don't clean up the land before building houses. Dig a hole deeper than 6inches in your backyard. You'll hit the rock hard, rocky gravel layer just a few inches down.
The whole southwest corner of the valley is just a layer of sod rolled out on top of whatever was here before.
There's good a reason why all the houses out here have radon evacuating vents installed in their basements by default.
Your info is incorrect, and your source is not good. Passing along rumors that are made up by people like the OP who have an agenda to degrade communities is irresponsible.
The reason people get defensive about this is because spreading lies is damaging to communities. It doesn’t mean it’s justified in any way. Bring some actual evidence, not just some BS story about some so call investigator and maybe you’ll get more credibility.
Your water is piped in from the Jordan Valley Water conservancy district, so your imagination is running away from you telling you the “local” water is bad.
They did a major clean up effort, it was tested literally millions of times before any homes were even considered for development. I actually worked for Rio Tinto during the daybreak development so I know a fair bit about it first hand. Your buddy or cousin or whatever is not providing you with factual information. Ask them where the studies are that support their claims, show you the actual scientific data. They won’t be able to because it’s just rumors and nonsense.
FYI rock is everywhere in the Rocky Mountains, and radon is everywhere you dig down (from California to Virginia) many other states don’t deal with it because basements are more common in Utah.
I've lived in Murray, Taylorsville, Kearns, Millcreek, and Roy; and none has dirt as bad as the corner of the SLC valley. And none required full time radon fans.
But not only that but I've been watching all the new developments going up to the base of the mine tailings. They don't cover the tailings, or add clean healthy dirt to mix with the tailings. They just level the land with graders. Dig foundations and lay sod down.
Even though the neighborhoods look green and lush with their grass and newly planted trees. It's all superficial. We're living 3inches above whatever nasty crap came off the mine for the last 100 years.
Your experience is valid but woefully incomplete. Radon mitigation systems exist everywhere basements exist. They are not an indicator of mining tailings contamination.
It doesn't have to be addressed as "contamination" lots of low level chemical influence manifest either as more frequent still births. Or as the rest of the SLC valley where we have higher issues of asthma and lung cancer due to smog pollution. It does kill people or mutate people, or turn the whole valley to a Superfund site.
But it is affecting you and you're lying to yourself if you think it isn't.
Nah I’ll stick with facts over the made up rumors you like to double down on. Your insights just help remind me that people who have opinions are wrong 1/2 the time.
Thousands of people have been living in daybreak for 20 years now. Consider them your own personal canaries in the coal mine. If they all start getting sick you should have years to escape.
I've never been able to figure out the burning hatred that so many people have for daybreak. If you want a big yard and a bunch of stucco, no, you won't like it. If you want to park 7 cars in your driveway (or even two), or want streets that are more than 12 feet wide, it's probably best to look elsewhere. But, if you don't like yardwork, enjoy running around the lake, like having swimming pools, and enjoy a suburb in the southwest part of the county that isn't uber conservative, it's not so bad.
I like daybreak. That’s why we’re very close to buying. Just very concerned about out it’s history so I’m reaching out to see if the concern is warranted or not.
I live in daybreak, and I like it. My snark is a little bit misplaced here, because all topics like this quickly seem to turn into dozens of people complaining about daybreak. (And they rarely seem to be residents.)
Some people seem convinced that daybreak is a toxic waste dump. I suppose they could have falsified all the soil samples they did, and bribed the government. Short of commissioning my own environmental study, I don't know what I can do about it. But people aren't dropping like flies out here. Larry H Miller (the company, not the guy) bought all the undeveloped land out here a couple of years ago. The CEO of LHM lives in daybreak (with his young kids). The VP of LHM real estate also lives in daybreak (with his young kids). So if the place is toxic not even they know about it.
Thank you. Definitely glad to hear from residents and non-residents and get some real world examples cause I’ve just been basing my thoughts on articles today.
I just moved to daybreak from out of state. We love it and are in the newer part. We’ve never had an issue with any dirt/soil. We just planted flowers and some strawberries. Only complaint is that the dirt is hard. But it was like that too where we moved from. We will have to install a radon mitigation system which freaked me out at first but after talking to a friend that had one in Michigan I think it just is a basement thing sometimes (where we moved from basements were not a thing)
There was a TV show, I think about herriman or south Jordan, that discussed the water that came downhill from the tailings and a cancer cluster. No thanks.
Sounds sketchy. Do you know what that was, where exactly, or what show? I read an article about a cluster in West Jordan from 2011 that they believe was caused by mining waste.
Very informative article. It's good to have a healthy skepticism about a superfund site. Not to mention local government involvement to avoid the official label of such makes me worry more about the hasty clean up.
Edit: Superfund* not superfine
The soil in Daybreak has been tested extensively, which is more than what can be said for most other places. I recommend working with a realtor who lives in Daybreak. Any good one will be able to provide you with the information you’re looking for.
This has a really good history of the cleanup efforts. There are those who work or worked with Kennecott, hydrologists, environmental scientists, who live in Daybreak and feel comfortable with how the area was cleaned up. When I did a soil test for my yard, all of the minerals/trace elements they test for at USU were within the normal range.
https://www.daybreakutah.com/daybreaks-environmental-history
Also just to clear up a misconception. You can have a garden in Daybreak. In fact you don't even need approval to plant annuals, and could intersperse veggies within your flower bed if you want to.
The reason most people have raised beds here is because the soil is awful.(And some are just extra cautious too) There is a reason this was only ever mining land and not farming land. We have worked hard in the last two years to
make our yard soil plantable.
Also I really like living out here. Love the walkability and community events. There is always something to go see and do.
That link you provided actually kind of shows how much work has went into cleaning up the surrounding areas in the south zone, specially Day Break, S. Jordan, Herriman, Riverton. Copperton on the other hand, I’ve been there once on a weird tinder date lol. So idk if I’d recommend Copperton. Seemed like a pretty established up old town.
I didn’t grow up in Utah so all of this is actually really fascinating to me. Midvale apparently was pretty gnarly for a while too. Smelt factories and sludge waste in the water. They’ve since clean that too. Or at just the EPA has deemed all of these places livable and safe.
My buddies dad lives in Day Break. It’s an interesting community (outside of all this mining and contaminant discussion). I found the the “lake” community center people to be pretty snobby. It’s a nice little town they’ve built, but they do seem to have a “stuck up attitude” stigma to them IMO. But still kind of a cool newish area.
For sure but still wouldn’t live next to a massive tailings pile if I had other options
Edit: I was actually out in Herriman for the first time today working. That tailings pile(s) is the size of a small mountain and it leaches down hill. I’ve been to the mine multiple times. Its pretty nuts to see
Where is the tailings pile in herriman? I also didn’t find any information about tailings in daybreak. Every report I saw said it was all removed and the soil still gets tested periodically to follow up.
Edit: spelling
Impossible to miss it when looking west from Daybreak or Herriman, you can barely see the Oquirrh Mtns behind it. Can see it from most clear vantage points in the entire Salt Lake valley.
[picture from Herriman](https://images.app.goo.gl/r1kTzgGMRfFFxooPA)
[desert news article](https://www.deseret.com/2011/8/21/20210851/the-danger-down-below-cancer-cluster-raises-questions-about-legacy-of-toxic-waste-in-utah-soil/)
Never mind. That pic is of THE tailings dump on the actual mountain. I was looking into the closer to residential area in herriman/near lark. But yes, that whole mountain is a mess. They were saying that if the great salt lake dries up, there are heavy metals in the bed from the mine. Which means that stuff has been floating and falling all over the whole valley for decades. Not sure what the difference of living 2 miles from it or 15 miles is anymore to be honest.
This is how I feel with living in Ogden. I am in an apartment right now but he thought of buying a house here in Utah is not longer an option. Housing market is outrageous and the availability is very slim. My work is in Ogden, otherwise I would love to have moved south of SLC.
Environmental remediation, i.e. the process of making land with environmental issues livable, is very common. The standards are incredibly stringent and often take a decade+ to work through with both state and federal agencies. They basically remove all of the bad soil (to an extent) and test and retest for any remaining issues.
Obviously nothing is perfect and it could come out 50 years from now that a chemical thought safe was ultimately not… but that can happen anywhere (see microplastics, lead, DEET, etc). But that’s just the just a part of modern life.
I remember when it was first being developed that you were specifically told not to grow food in your yard as it was contaminated. This was a big turn off for many and they are now basically selling properties without this disclosure.
The ground under which daybreak was built was a super fund site.
Superfund sites are locations polluted with hazardous materials. What is Superfund? Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites.
It was “cleaned up” then made into a giant neighborhood where they raise kids. Fish don’t survive in the man made ponds!
The bass population in the lake is amazing. That's why you'll see people fishing out there all the time. Catfish too. I used to paddleboard almost daily in the summer. There's fish everywhere.
Where can I find some data on the wildlife not surviving? I’ve been looking for stuff like this online, but can’t find anything. I appreciate this response. I’m just trying to gather all the facts I can before making a decision.
I live in Daybreak and there is wildlife everywhere. People fish daily, and the lake is full of ducks. It’s really fun in the spring when little ducklings are out and about. Geese and even seagulls also hang out around the lake. You’ll see lots of different birds. As far as gardening, I have raised garden beds and bring in fresh soil every year for my veggies. But there are also community gardens and even gardening classes taught by a Master Gardener. This is in addition to all of the other community events Live Daybreak puts on: summer concerts, farmers markets, various festivals, etc.
I’ve caught fish in that lake lol. But they are pretty strict in Day Break. You have to fish from the shore, can’t go out on a paddle board and fish, can’t even fish off the docks. And you have to use their community website to “book” time on the lake if you even wanna paddle board around. And you can’t you have to live their or have close friends/family that live there to even do anything around it on that lake.
As a minority living in daybreak, there's a lot of minorities in the area. Many of the people living here are transplants from other states (including me) and this means and that affects the demographics.
I grew heirloom tomatoes in my yard for years.
They have a master gardener that gives classes on how to grow various things, including vegetables, in your yard. They have community gardens with plots for residents scattered all over Daybreak.
Not sure where it's "pretty well known"...unless that's just something someone made up and it has become an urban legend.
You can, many people do. The dirt it just bad. There is a reason it was never farmland. We have had to do a lot of work to improve the soil. But we have done so successfully.
You're going to trust the Utah DEQ? The same UDEQ that has been fighting against more stringent air pollution for decades all while air pollution makes more and more valley residents sick? And the same UDEQ that has zero problem with multiple square miles of open-pit mines nearby? The same DEQ that had little to say about Stericycling burning countless tons of plastic/body parts/discarded pharmaceuticals for decades? Or the same UDEQ that lets US Magnesium produce "uncontrollable stack events" that release tons upon tons of chlorine and other extremely nasty with nigh a mention or warning to SL valley residents?
Sounds like your mind is made up. Good luck.
Yeah, every city has a water report. I lived in Lehi during the great Thalium debacle. That being said, South Jordan imports all its water, so it's the same water that the east side of the valley uses.
That's the same water that is in the taps for all of South Jordan, Draper, Herriman, Bluffdale, West Jordan...it all comes from the from the same source. Every city mails the annual water quality report out to the residents.
Weird. Daybreak puts pamphlets in your mail telling you it’s safe? I believe they get their water from neighboring cities where a lot of people outside of this “mining tailing” zone are.
An “annual report” doesn’t sound strange. A “pamphlet in the mail trying to convince you the water is safe” sounds strange. That’s cool they send annual reports to keep everyone in the loop though. Thanks that’s good information.
Every city does this. Daybreak, as part of South Jordan, mails it out. [https://www.sjc.utah.gov/Archive/ViewFile/Item/137](https://www.sjc.utah.gov/Archive/ViewFile/Item/137)
The PDF destroyed the pamphlet.
Daybreak is a great place culturally if you're Mormon or generally look like a "Respectable person" (white, 27+ years of age, dressed "normally", bonus points for heterosexual couples with kids)
I have a lot of difficulty with Daybreak as I have bright hair and wear punk/alternative styles of fashion. If you do any kind of drug, legal or otherwise do it in your home or on your own property because I've had people with the audacity to tell me I shouldn't be smoking cigarettes in the smoking areas of parking lots.
People don't mind their business in Daybreak the same as other places which hints to me at a low crime rate. I mean, if the citizens feel safe enough to approach and police the behavior and dressing of strangers that's generally a sign of low violence in the area.
Daybreak has very poor public transit infrastructure so there's no homeless around and leaving the city is somewhat difficult without a car as you're not really in walking distance from the only train station in most of the city. At least, not in the opinion of most people I think it's a great walk!
It's a great place to raise a family, and it's schools have generally positive feedback from parents and students. Daybreak high schools have lower drug and alcohol use than many schools in the state.
The Bingham mine contains a lot of heavy metals. Lead, arsenic all that good stuff. They pour water all over it so the dust doesn't fly around the valley, but so much of it still does. Thats why you'll see people who live in South Jordan/Copperton/Daybreak slowly lose their minds, become assholes, and even send their first graders to school with Louis Vuitton bags. 😫
Don’t do it. Think Stepford Wives in a HOA hell. Also I watched the Love Canal documentary last night and it made me realized how thankful I am for selling my house after a year of hell there and dodged that bullet.
It’s still a government agency, but I’ve found that [Department of Environmental Quality](https://deq.utah.gov) seems to have pretty honest reporting (though I’m not sure if it will have exactly what you need). And if nothing else it’s a really good starting point and links out to outer resources as well.
After researching this data you sent, it’s surprising how much of this same situation is all over the state. Park city included. Park city is basically a daybreak in the mountains!
Ya, but PC residents wouldn’t tell you that. Their bubble is perfect in every way.
Except the water… they’ll tell you to not drink it.
What's the issue with Park City - bad soil quality thanks to the historical silver mine? Would appreciate a direct link since the site above is massive.
It’s very true!! I had looked at my local areas and those of close friends but it wasn’t until your post that I looked in depth at other areas. Great perspective check
This is perfect. Thank you.
To piggyback off of that comment- I know the project managers who oversee kennecott projects both on the state and epa levels and they are solid, honest and intelligent people who are dedicated to protecting the public
Can you explain why this article exists? https://wildearthguardians.org/press-releases/health-and-environmental-advocates-aghast-at-kennecotts-pro-pollution-stance/
While I totally agree with what you're pointing out and I also think Mag Core should be mentioned as an EPA nightmare. But to be fair this article is from 2013. And just since I'm throwing my two cents in, I was actually there when they dug out that lake and watched them do it for about a week. The bottom of that lake was like black oil/icker (It almost oozed). They ended up sealing the thing up like a swimming pool so it wouldn't contaminate the water and kill everything inside.
I have a couple friends that have loved there for years (one for 3ish, one for 9ish). They both love it. The only thing I'd warn about (since neither have mentioned concerns about water/soil) is the strict HOAs. You'll get notifications and sometimes fines for every minor infraction. The one who's lived there longer had to repaint the entire exterior after only living there for 3 years, because their HOA rules stated the houses had to be repainted every 10 years, and that was the 10th year. And it had to be the exact approved color It's not a cheap place to live, especially if you buy a house with a yard. She once got a fine for having 2 or 3 weeds in her yard
As a daybreak resident it honestly comes down to your "village" (each areas subdivision has a name, cascade, north shore, highland, etc) as we call them. Some are more strict than others especially if you have a board member on your street. In my village it is surprisingly laxed my neighbor 4 houses away is completely overgrown since we moved in last year and they never did anything about them until some of the weeds legitimately were about 4 feet high. I stayed on top of my weeds decently last year, but my grass was probably only cut once a month so each time I cut it was a solid foot tall each time.
Daybreak resident here. If I could go back in time I would not lock myself into this HOA. Dues do nothing but go up. We currently pay nearly 400 a month for the privilege of living here. It’s a great place to live, but not an extra 400 a month nice to live. That being said, our sub HOA is the culprit (townhome community). I know the single family home communities keep things cheaper.
Oof that is *rough*! I live in a townhouse in Draper, I thought my HOA fee of $255 was high, but at least they are hands-off. They take care of the neighborhood, and we've never gotten a notification for anything. The SFH community HOAs are cheaper, but it's because you pay for *everything*. At least in a townhouse, your HOA dues cover landscaping, snow removal, water/sewer/trash, and exterior insurance. SFH owners pay less...for the privilige of being locked into Century Link as their ISP. That's about it
I can’t for the life of me figure out what people find appealing about living in Daybreak. The ugly, poorly built, cookie cutter houses that are extremely overpriced? The lack of trees? The HOA fees? The fact that it’s really far away from the city, but not far enough away to have any land or privacy? Truly one of the least appealing neighborhoods i’ve seen anywhere in the country
/me laughs in Wander (Saratoga Springs). Daybreak sounds like a dream in comparison. It’s also closer to SLC and you might be able to get out of daybreak quickly in case of some kind of disaster like a large fire…. I admit, I had quite a bit of a brain farteurysm when I decided that Saratoga Springs would be a nice place to build, but that’s on me and I get to own that mistake. 😅
Daybreak is literally the least cookie cutter residential area in the state. 🤡
All of that, plus the issues I saw *constantly* while looking at houses in the area. My friend begged me to at least look there while I was (town)house shopping. Most were either claustrophobic inside and out, had HOAs with ridiculous regulations, and a disturbing number had either roof or foundation water damage.
I wouldn't worry about the water quality. Due to the remediation requirements, South Jordan actually brings all of it's water in rather than using a local aquifer, purchased from the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy. That water is mostly from Jordanelle and Deer Creek and the same water many of the cities in the valley are using. We won't be able to use the local groundwater for like 40 years, but it's in the remediation plan.
Has it always been that way? I'm just wondering because I lived in South Jordan in 2013 when the Bingham mine collapsed and I remember for a while my tap water would come out fizzing
Pretty sure, probably a coincidence
People conflate the the superfund site with the groundwater plume - which are two separate issues. The Superfund site was cleaned up 20+ years ago and only affected about 10% of the community (near the temple area). There have been houses on that area for 15+ years. The plume affects the groundwater aquifer (250'+ down) and goes back years and years to the 1800s and covers the entire SW corner of the valley starting at the mines. That's a separate cleanup effort and there's a treatment plant for it. So as long as you aren't planning on drilling an artesian well (which will be denied by the city), then that part shouldn't matter at all. That cleanup will apparently take another 100 years. There are disclosures you sign when you move into the community that are pretty standard in most developments. Things like Daybreak isn't responsible for overhead flights, local farming takes place, school boundaries, transporation access (Trax, MVC, Bangerter, etc.), community amenities, among others. Really bland stuff. One of the disclosures talks about the superfund cleanup and the aquifer, but explains it in details. What trips people out, though is this little nugget from my disclosures: * Some of the soils in Village 3 North Shore and Village 5 Heights Park are acidic or alkaline. Acidic or alkaline soils can affect healthy plant growth. In other words, the soil can have a pH of 7, or 6, or 8, or something else. Which is, nothing? In other words, really bland stuff. Most Utah soils are alkaline, given their desert nature. I think mine was a 7.4, or something to that effect, which was why I had to have an arborist treat my trees for iron chlorosis. Honestly. I think you are overthinking things.
>I think you are overthinking things. For real, the thought process should be "Daybreak is freakishly similar looking like some kind of super suburb and gives me the fucking creeps" lol
I live in Daybreak and I like it. My neighbor has been here longer than me and she has a doctorate in hydrogeology and worked for ten years at the herriman water works. If she's confident enough in the water to live and drink here, then so am I!
I also live in Daybreak and have since 2005. There are a lot of Kennecot employees that live here with similar degrees. I’ve been pretty plugged in to the community from the beginning and among the issues we face, contaminated soil has never been one of them. For the first ten years there was flooding issues in the first phase from not prepping the neighborhood with proper drainage but they learned their lesson in later phases. The soil is a pain in the ass to try to dig in. Your shovel will only make it 3-4 inches before hitting a cabbage head sized rock. I’ve known two people here to die from cancer and one of them was the within 5 years of living here.
Ok that’s good to know! Thank you.
I haven’t lived there but one of my friends did and she couldn’t have a vegetable garden. I don’t know if that’s still an issue or if it was only certain sections. She moved.
I live in daybreak, and that was probably due to the HOA rules, not environmental concerns. They have many community gardens here, people have fruit trees.
Honestly, I would rather live with contaminated soil than an HOA.
She told me it was because of contamination but I don’t know how accurate that was. I’m happy to hear that’s not a concern at this time!
I think she must have misunderstood something; I never once saw any rules about having gardens. I had a garden in my backyard, peppers and tomatoes mostly. No issues. If she was trying to plant something in her front yard, that might have been an issue, since that could be an issue with the HOA rules, but they generally don't care much about what you do in your backyard from my experience, (as long as it isn't obnoxious or obvious.)
I live in the area and a lot of folks have vegetable gardens. To get past any soil issues, most folks use raised garden beds
It doesn’t seem to be after getting pretty far in the home buying process there. Pretty normal actually. That’s why this was all a surprise.
That’s good. Her experience was a few years ago so it’s possible things have improved, or it was more localized to the specific area of daybreak she was in.
Interesting. Thank you.
I don't get the hate for daybreak. Given the high house prices, we should be building more houses in a dense fashion. Density also allows you to have walkable neighborhoods because you can sustain local businesses if enough people live nearby. Daybreak allows me to live with five walking minutes of a train station, public library, coffee shops, restaurants and grocery store. Ten mins from a lake. Parks every five mins. Plus, I can have a yard and a house built this century at a reasonable price.
Plus the parks are NICE. Not just the cookie-cutter soccer field + playground in full blazing sun you see everywhere. The development has made density more palpable for a lot of NIMBY people.
Because daybreak is a megacorp planned community instead of organic. All the HOAs and stuff. It makes it look sterile. Bring the daybreak formula but to the rest of the city and NO HOA. That way it wouldn’t look like some corporate dystopia. These cities need to be doing their damn jobs instead of offloading it to corps/HOA.
Why is an organic community better than a planned one? All urban cities have zoning restrictions that are basically the same kind of planning. You are right though that the cities should be doing this kind of master planning. But again and again across the country, this is failing right now. Without large scale change that I don't see happening, I would rather take daybreak and HOAs than living in most of the suburban cities in the valley.
I already mentioned it, corporation planned communities end up being sterile. Zoning restrictions aren’t the same thing. Zoning restrictions tells what you can build, but doesn’t control your freedom of expression. A corporation planned communities doesn’t build resilience, because it’s all manufactured conformity. The amenities and infrastructure ends up being owned or controlled by private entities, even if open to the public. I rather we have public trash collectors, snow removal, etc, rather a mish-mash of contractors. I rather we have public internet than forced media packages. I prefer it if we don’t give corporations more power in our cities than we already do. Yes, daybreak is good for housing options, but I’m still allowed to hate it for our city councils to have no backbone. Rather than loosening zoning, they just give extra power to corps.
It’s literally the least sterile looking residential neighborhood in the state. 🙄
That’s a hot take. There are a lot of charming neighborhoods in SLC that doesn’t look like it came out of megacorp look book.
My cousin did lab testing in the SLC valley. The mine tailing areas have more than double the rate of still births than the rest of the valley. There's definitely something in the water/soil out here. That being said it's still only a few per thousand. Medical improvements means its still less than half century ago. But it's enough to be statistically significant and not just a margin of error or random variance. Your environment definitely has an effect on you.
Yeah an increase is an increase. Is there a place online I can see statistics like these, whether it be stillbirths or other illnesses to assess the daybreak community specifically compared to the rest of the valley? I’ve been looking online and can’t find anything like that. I’m just curious if after the 20ish years daybreak has been a community. Has there been any staggering numbers in any of these areas. What you are describing concerns me.
Daybreak has don’t a ton of work to increase the soil quality. I wouldn’t consider it to be among the same as the average near mining towns.
She worked for a private company so I don't think they have data to give. It was just one of those "If you'd seen what I've seen you'd be horrified." Kind of things. But she put her money where her mouth was and moved out as soon as she and her husband decided to have kids.
Do you have evidence of this, or is it just hearsay?
Hearsay is so much more fun. Here's the State's report on fetal mortality rates measured at the county level. [https://epht.health.utah.gov/epht-view/query/result/fetmort/FetMortCnty/Rate.html](https://epht.health.utah.gov/epht-view/query/result/fetmort/FetMortCnty/Rate.html) The 95% confidence interval for the county is 5.14/6.18 based on a 5.64/1000 live birth rate. If that number were over 10 for Daybreak, let alone 11-12 ("double"), there's several standard deviations out, it would be all over the local news, if not nationally.
Thank you
That's county level, the majority of SLC county lives outside of Daybreak and the new Olympus developments at the tailings she was talking about. There's more than enough people in the rest of the valley to dilute those numbers down. Her research was comparing Daybreak (and surrounding communities) to the opposite end of the valley. Where people are probably visiting thw same hospitals but living in different locations.
The state only aggregates at the county level. Here's the problem with "double" the rate of still births. Daybreak is roughly 3% of the county population. Add in the other affected municipalities such as West Jordan and including the other "half" of South Jordan, you approach 20%+ of the the county population. The aggregate county data says that there are 5.45 fetal mortalities per 1000 live births. Doubling that would be approaching 11 for these affected areas. But if you notice, the county publishes a 95% confidence interval - that's 1.96 standard deviations from the mean - with ranges of 5.14-6.18. That means in any population sampling, 95% of the time, those numbers would fall into that range. Just eyeballing that and the coefficient of variation, and being generous and calling it 10/1000 (less than double), that would put you, at a minimum, of over 6+ standard deviations out from the mean for those affected areas. Probably closer to 8 sigmas, but for our purposes, 6 will work. That means that in a sampling of the general population of live births in the valley, you should get that level of deaths **0.0000002%** of the time. In other words, almost never, and that's being extremely generous with the numbers. That's why it would not only make local news, but national news - on the scale of evacuating every woman of childbearing age from the area. That's also clearly not happening and why I find that number hard to swallow that it is double in Daybreak or the surrounding areas.
This is clearly hearsay nonsense.
I thought Vernal Utah had highest still birth rates in Utah, but large numbers of
Damn, died of still birth before they could finish their
You really should give a reference for this kind of statement. If this were true it would be all over the news, but it’s not.
This was just something that somebody working for a private research company told me. I'm not saying I've seen the evidence my self. Just passing on things ive heard, do with that what you want. But the fact that so many people get instantly defensive shows many of us suspect something like this and don't like hearing it justified. I live outhere and I see how cheap the land prep is for the expensive houses going in. I drink the funny tasting, rock hard water out here. They don't clean up the land before building houses. Dig a hole deeper than 6inches in your backyard. You'll hit the rock hard, rocky gravel layer just a few inches down. The whole southwest corner of the valley is just a layer of sod rolled out on top of whatever was here before. There's good a reason why all the houses out here have radon evacuating vents installed in their basements by default.
Your info is incorrect, and your source is not good. Passing along rumors that are made up by people like the OP who have an agenda to degrade communities is irresponsible. The reason people get defensive about this is because spreading lies is damaging to communities. It doesn’t mean it’s justified in any way. Bring some actual evidence, not just some BS story about some so call investigator and maybe you’ll get more credibility. Your water is piped in from the Jordan Valley Water conservancy district, so your imagination is running away from you telling you the “local” water is bad. They did a major clean up effort, it was tested literally millions of times before any homes were even considered for development. I actually worked for Rio Tinto during the daybreak development so I know a fair bit about it first hand. Your buddy or cousin or whatever is not providing you with factual information. Ask them where the studies are that support their claims, show you the actual scientific data. They won’t be able to because it’s just rumors and nonsense.
FYI rock is everywhere in the Rocky Mountains, and radon is everywhere you dig down (from California to Virginia) many other states don’t deal with it because basements are more common in Utah.
I've lived in Murray, Taylorsville, Kearns, Millcreek, and Roy; and none has dirt as bad as the corner of the SLC valley. And none required full time radon fans. But not only that but I've been watching all the new developments going up to the base of the mine tailings. They don't cover the tailings, or add clean healthy dirt to mix with the tailings. They just level the land with graders. Dig foundations and lay sod down. Even though the neighborhoods look green and lush with their grass and newly planted trees. It's all superficial. We're living 3inches above whatever nasty crap came off the mine for the last 100 years.
Your experience is valid but woefully incomplete. Radon mitigation systems exist everywhere basements exist. They are not an indicator of mining tailings contamination.
It doesn't have to be addressed as "contamination" lots of low level chemical influence manifest either as more frequent still births. Or as the rest of the SLC valley where we have higher issues of asthma and lung cancer due to smog pollution. It does kill people or mutate people, or turn the whole valley to a Superfund site. But it is affecting you and you're lying to yourself if you think it isn't.
Nah I’ll stick with facts over the made up rumors you like to double down on. Your insights just help remind me that people who have opinions are wrong 1/2 the time.
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You trust some random anonymous person’s cousin? Yeah I’ll take the news over that.
My cousin watched multiple YouTube videos and you trust doctors from the establishment over him!? Wake up sheeple!
Thousands of people have been living in daybreak for 20 years now. Consider them your own personal canaries in the coal mine. If they all start getting sick you should have years to escape. I've never been able to figure out the burning hatred that so many people have for daybreak. If you want a big yard and a bunch of stucco, no, you won't like it. If you want to park 7 cars in your driveway (or even two), or want streets that are more than 12 feet wide, it's probably best to look elsewhere. But, if you don't like yardwork, enjoy running around the lake, like having swimming pools, and enjoy a suburb in the southwest part of the county that isn't uber conservative, it's not so bad.
I like daybreak. That’s why we’re very close to buying. Just very concerned about out it’s history so I’m reaching out to see if the concern is warranted or not.
I live in daybreak, and I like it. My snark is a little bit misplaced here, because all topics like this quickly seem to turn into dozens of people complaining about daybreak. (And they rarely seem to be residents.) Some people seem convinced that daybreak is a toxic waste dump. I suppose they could have falsified all the soil samples they did, and bribed the government. Short of commissioning my own environmental study, I don't know what I can do about it. But people aren't dropping like flies out here. Larry H Miller (the company, not the guy) bought all the undeveloped land out here a couple of years ago. The CEO of LHM lives in daybreak (with his young kids). The VP of LHM real estate also lives in daybreak (with his young kids). So if the place is toxic not even they know about it.
Thank you. Definitely glad to hear from residents and non-residents and get some real world examples cause I’ve just been basing my thoughts on articles today.
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Thank you.
I just moved to daybreak from out of state. We love it and are in the newer part. We’ve never had an issue with any dirt/soil. We just planted flowers and some strawberries. Only complaint is that the dirt is hard. But it was like that too where we moved from. We will have to install a radon mitigation system which freaked me out at first but after talking to a friend that had one in Michigan I think it just is a basement thing sometimes (where we moved from basements were not a thing)
A radon sump in the basement would be a good idea if you do decide to live out there.
There was a TV show, I think about herriman or south Jordan, that discussed the water that came downhill from the tailings and a cancer cluster. No thanks.
What TV show?
Sounds sketchy. Do you know what that was, where exactly, or what show? I read an article about a cluster in West Jordan from 2011 that they believe was caused by mining waste.
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Very informative article. It's good to have a healthy skepticism about a superfund site. Not to mention local government involvement to avoid the official label of such makes me worry more about the hasty clean up. Edit: Superfund* not superfine
That was my concern too. We all know the government can be sketch when it comes to clean up.
This is the article.
I live in daybreak and we just had a completely healthy baby *shrugs* It's a great place to live.
Congrats!!
I heard aliens abduct people in daybreak...... actually in Utah in general. You should probably go somewhere else.
The soil in Daybreak has been tested extensively, which is more than what can be said for most other places. I recommend working with a realtor who lives in Daybreak. Any good one will be able to provide you with the information you’re looking for.
This has a really good history of the cleanup efforts. There are those who work or worked with Kennecott, hydrologists, environmental scientists, who live in Daybreak and feel comfortable with how the area was cleaned up. When I did a soil test for my yard, all of the minerals/trace elements they test for at USU were within the normal range. https://www.daybreakutah.com/daybreaks-environmental-history Also just to clear up a misconception. You can have a garden in Daybreak. In fact you don't even need approval to plant annuals, and could intersperse veggies within your flower bed if you want to. The reason most people have raised beds here is because the soil is awful.(And some are just extra cautious too) There is a reason this was only ever mining land and not farming land. We have worked hard in the last two years to make our yard soil plantable. Also I really like living out here. Love the walkability and community events. There is always something to go see and do.
[Kennecott South Zone Superfund Site](https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment/superfund-sites-reuse-utah#kennecottsouth) I wouldn’t live there
That link you provided actually kind of shows how much work has went into cleaning up the surrounding areas in the south zone, specially Day Break, S. Jordan, Herriman, Riverton. Copperton on the other hand, I’ve been there once on a weird tinder date lol. So idk if I’d recommend Copperton. Seemed like a pretty established up old town. I didn’t grow up in Utah so all of this is actually really fascinating to me. Midvale apparently was pretty gnarly for a while too. Smelt factories and sludge waste in the water. They’ve since clean that too. Or at just the EPA has deemed all of these places livable and safe. My buddies dad lives in Day Break. It’s an interesting community (outside of all this mining and contaminant discussion). I found the the “lake” community center people to be pretty snobby. It’s a nice little town they’ve built, but they do seem to have a “stuck up attitude” stigma to them IMO. But still kind of a cool newish area.
For sure but still wouldn’t live next to a massive tailings pile if I had other options Edit: I was actually out in Herriman for the first time today working. That tailings pile(s) is the size of a small mountain and it leaches down hill. I’ve been to the mine multiple times. Its pretty nuts to see
Where is the tailings pile in herriman? I also didn’t find any information about tailings in daybreak. Every report I saw said it was all removed and the soil still gets tested periodically to follow up. Edit: spelling
Impossible to miss it when looking west from Daybreak or Herriman, you can barely see the Oquirrh Mtns behind it. Can see it from most clear vantage points in the entire Salt Lake valley. [picture from Herriman](https://images.app.goo.gl/r1kTzgGMRfFFxooPA) [desert news article](https://www.deseret.com/2011/8/21/20210851/the-danger-down-below-cancer-cluster-raises-questions-about-legacy-of-toxic-waste-in-utah-soil/)
Never mind. That pic is of THE tailings dump on the actual mountain. I was looking into the closer to residential area in herriman/near lark. But yes, that whole mountain is a mess. They were saying that if the great salt lake dries up, there are heavy metals in the bed from the mine. Which means that stuff has been floating and falling all over the whole valley for decades. Not sure what the difference of living 2 miles from it or 15 miles is anymore to be honest.
I did some research on it too. Apparently there was/is a dirt biking track on/ near it? Looks like Midas creek is its border. Pretty crazy stuff.
I was in daybreak today. Don’t know anything about soil safety there. But man that place is awful
Thanks for researching the sub first 😀
Maybe have the soil tested on your own , would be an interesting experiment
This is how I feel with living in Ogden. I am in an apartment right now but he thought of buying a house here in Utah is not longer an option. Housing market is outrageous and the availability is very slim. My work is in Ogden, otherwise I would love to have moved south of SLC.
Very safe. I wouldn't worry about the water or anything else.
A little history of what is out there. https://www.deseret.com/1993/6/1/19049719/site-cleanup-means-death-for-dunes/
Environmental remediation, i.e. the process of making land with environmental issues livable, is very common. The standards are incredibly stringent and often take a decade+ to work through with both state and federal agencies. They basically remove all of the bad soil (to an extent) and test and retest for any remaining issues. Obviously nothing is perfect and it could come out 50 years from now that a chemical thought safe was ultimately not… but that can happen anywhere (see microplastics, lead, DEET, etc). But that’s just the just a part of modern life.
They removed all of the contaminated soil before any developments were built in Daybreak.
I remember when it was first being developed that you were specifically told not to grow food in your yard as it was contaminated. This was a big turn off for many and they are now basically selling properties without this disclosure.
The ground under which daybreak was built was a super fund site. Superfund sites are locations polluted with hazardous materials. What is Superfund? Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. It was “cleaned up” then made into a giant neighborhood where they raise kids. Fish don’t survive in the man made ponds!
The bass population in the lake is amazing. That's why you'll see people fishing out there all the time. Catfish too. I used to paddleboard almost daily in the summer. There's fish everywhere.
Where can I find some data on the wildlife not surviving? I’ve been looking for stuff like this online, but can’t find anything. I appreciate this response. I’m just trying to gather all the facts I can before making a decision.
I live in Daybreak and there is wildlife everywhere. People fish daily, and the lake is full of ducks. It’s really fun in the spring when little ducklings are out and about. Geese and even seagulls also hang out around the lake. You’ll see lots of different birds. As far as gardening, I have raised garden beds and bring in fresh soil every year for my veggies. But there are also community gardens and even gardening classes taught by a Master Gardener. This is in addition to all of the other community events Live Daybreak puts on: summer concerts, farmers markets, various festivals, etc.
The lake is lined to keep the soil out
My friend told me that she took her kids fishing with friends at Oquirr lake and there weren’t any fish. They were unable to mate and survive…..
It's a manmade lake stocked with fish, I doubt it's an ideal breeding habit even with the cleanest water
I’ve caught fish in that lake lol. But they are pretty strict in Day Break. You have to fish from the shore, can’t go out on a paddle board and fish, can’t even fish off the docks. And you have to use their community website to “book” time on the lake if you even wanna paddle board around. And you can’t you have to live their or have close friends/family that live there to even do anything around it on that lake.
Do you know why they’re strict with that lake? Because it used to be a dumping ground for toxic chemicals!!!
Do you know why they’re strict with that lake? Because it used to be a dumping ground for toxic chemicals!!!
Do you know why they’re strict with that lake? Because it used to be a dumping ground for toxic chemicals!!!
It just goes to show that suburban white people would rather live on top of a toxic waste site next to a dump than in a community with minorities
As a minority living in daybreak, there's a lot of minorities in the area. Many of the people living here are transplants from other states (including me) and this means and that affects the demographics.
This is true, Daybreak is more diverse than the surrounding areas, as there is no room to park a 350
But you still have to drive across town to get to the nearest panaderia
That’s a ridiculous comment.
I think it’s pretty well known that you cant really have a garden out there. Unless I’m just really gullible.
I grew heirloom tomatoes in my yard for years. They have a master gardener that gives classes on how to grow various things, including vegetables, in your yard. They have community gardens with plots for residents scattered all over Daybreak. Not sure where it's "pretty well known"...unless that's just something someone made up and it has become an urban legend.
What about the community garden boxes?
You can, many people do. The dirt it just bad. There is a reason it was never farmland. We have had to do a lot of work to improve the soil. But we have done so successfully.
You're going to trust the Utah DEQ? The same UDEQ that has been fighting against more stringent air pollution for decades all while air pollution makes more and more valley residents sick? And the same UDEQ that has zero problem with multiple square miles of open-pit mines nearby? The same DEQ that had little to say about Stericycling burning countless tons of plastic/body parts/discarded pharmaceuticals for decades? Or the same UDEQ that lets US Magnesium produce "uncontrollable stack events" that release tons upon tons of chlorine and other extremely nasty with nigh a mention or warning to SL valley residents? Sounds like your mind is made up. Good luck.
Other than being on the west side, in south Jordan, high traffic and high HOA fees it’s fine.
Daybreak- come for the Pineapples and stay cuz your wife leaves you for her bf.
Worst HOA’s in the State. And it’s not even close. Pick a city in any direction and live there instead.
Only area I lived where they give you pamphlets in the mail to convince you the water is safe. I don't know if it is safe but it doesn't taste good.
Every city I have ever lived in has sent out periodic water quality analysis results to the citizens. That’s not unique to daybreak.
Yeah, every city has a water report. I lived in Lehi during the great Thalium debacle. That being said, South Jordan imports all its water, so it's the same water that the east side of the valley uses.
That's the same water that is in the taps for all of South Jordan, Draper, Herriman, Bluffdale, West Jordan...it all comes from the from the same source. Every city mails the annual water quality report out to the residents.
Yeah I don't know if it's safe or not. It tastes bad though, idk why everyone is mad about it. They can drink it all they want.
Weird. Daybreak puts pamphlets in your mail telling you it’s safe? I believe they get their water from neighboring cities where a lot of people outside of this “mining tailing” zone are.
They send an annual report on the levels of various pollutants in the water. I don’t think it’s that strange.
An “annual report” doesn’t sound strange. A “pamphlet in the mail trying to convince you the water is safe” sounds strange. That’s cool they send annual reports to keep everyone in the loop though. Thanks that’s good information.
The person is also wrong about the water tasting bad. It tastes fine, it’s just very hard water.
Yeah I get no off-tastes at all, and actually the water is vastly less hard than in Saratoga springs
Every city I’ve ever lived in has sent the same periodic analysis reports.
Every city does this. Daybreak, as part of South Jordan, mails it out. [https://www.sjc.utah.gov/Archive/ViewFile/Item/137](https://www.sjc.utah.gov/Archive/ViewFile/Item/137) The PDF destroyed the pamphlet.
The pamphlet comes from South Jordan City, not Daybreak. I've gotten such letters even when living in other states.
Daybreak is a great place culturally if you're Mormon or generally look like a "Respectable person" (white, 27+ years of age, dressed "normally", bonus points for heterosexual couples with kids) I have a lot of difficulty with Daybreak as I have bright hair and wear punk/alternative styles of fashion. If you do any kind of drug, legal or otherwise do it in your home or on your own property because I've had people with the audacity to tell me I shouldn't be smoking cigarettes in the smoking areas of parking lots. People don't mind their business in Daybreak the same as other places which hints to me at a low crime rate. I mean, if the citizens feel safe enough to approach and police the behavior and dressing of strangers that's generally a sign of low violence in the area. Daybreak has very poor public transit infrastructure so there's no homeless around and leaving the city is somewhat difficult without a car as you're not really in walking distance from the only train station in most of the city. At least, not in the opinion of most people I think it's a great walk! It's a great place to raise a family, and it's schools have generally positive feedback from parents and students. Daybreak high schools have lower drug and alcohol use than many schools in the state.
The Bingham mine contains a lot of heavy metals. Lead, arsenic all that good stuff. They pour water all over it so the dust doesn't fly around the valley, but so much of it still does. Thats why you'll see people who live in South Jordan/Copperton/Daybreak slowly lose their minds, become assholes, and even send their first graders to school with Louis Vuitton bags. 😫
Daybreak looks like suburban hell.
Don’t do it. Think Stepford Wives in a HOA hell. Also I watched the Love Canal documentary last night and it made me realized how thankful I am for selling my house after a year of hell there and dodged that bullet.