Why do so many people live so close to refineries in Utah and elsewhere?

And how close is too close? Does it depend on which way the wind blows?

They're valid questions that could be asked on behalf of children, who draw breath from the same pool of air that mixes with whatever the refineries emit from their stacks on a daily basis.

It's hard to complain too much. We need the refineries until cleaner technologies become cheaper and more abundant.

But with the potential risks that breathing polluted air imposes on the relatively vulnerable developing lungs and immune systems of children, I wonder if people worry about their choice of where to live in proximity to five refineries in north Salt Lake County and south Davis County.

Thousands of houses and apartments are close, even across the street from some of the refineries. This week the trouble is over occasional explosions.

But is anyone worried about air quality?

From about three miles away I took the photo below that depicts the scene Wednesday minutes after an explosion at one of the refineries.

click image to enlarge

Is the threat greater to children by living too close to one explosion or too close to a refinery's daily airborne pollutants? It would no doubt depend on the size of the explosion or the amount and type of pollutants.

Usually only one or two of the stacks at a time during any given week is spewing noticeable amounts of black smoke. Tougher laws on air quality are slowly helping refineries run cleaner than ever before in the decades they've been in operation.

But nagging questions persist.

Why do so many people buy homes near the refineries, especially if they're at all concerned about the potential risks involved for their children?

The answer is the same for most people, regardless of where they live.

It's all about where the right house, at the right price, is at when you're in the market for a place to live.

But there's something very troubling about that answer.

Go way back to how available real estate first comes into being, starting with vacant land.

In some cases, the refineries were there first to grab available land. After they satisfied the concerns of local and state government officials, they were allowed to build or expand in an area that maybe wasn't as populated as it is today.

Whether you see them as good or bad stewards of the environment or whether they were there first or not, we need the refineries and they're not going away any time soon.

Then there's the residential developer, who sees opportunity with vacant land, which is in increasingly shorter supply along the Wasatch Front.

After residential developers get all of the right zoning, permits, surveys and various reports that say it's safe to build houses on that vacant land, they need final approval from local governments before they can pour a single foundation or start bringing utilities to the development.

Eventually, as in some cases here in Utah, houses get built on or near land that is or was contaminated (now reclaimed or capped) or near a site, maybe a highway or an industrial area with an incinerator or mining operation, where the air or groundwater has shown evidence of being more polluted than in areas just one, two or three miles away.

Once in a while someone writes a news story or a book or experts and activists on cause and effect in our environment hold a press conference or start a grassroots awareness campaign, connecting the dots in some part of the country between potential health issues or proven disease clusters and possible culprits coming from beneath the surface, on top of the ground or in the air.

In the meantime, we trust and rely on experts and our local governments to raise any needed red flags on behalf of residents whose health and safety might be at risk because of where they live or might choose to buy a home. We assume developers have done their honest and due diligence to ensure the health and safety of future homebuyers.

If the house is on the market, we tell ourselves, it must be safe or at least relatively safe to live there. Most of us make the same common, presumably small leap of faith when we buy a house that we can afford and one that makes sense relative to where we work, where our extended families reside or what we want or need in a home.

So, maybe there's not one pollutant swimming in, buried in or swirling about near where we live that will ever harm your children. Let's hope not.

Then again, maybe your children, or just one of them, won't be so fortunate. And even if that were the case, how would you ever know which environmental source, if any, caused the health issue?

Would you know where to start looking? Would you start searching only to discover you're looking at three or four of the problem's possible sources, including the choice you made on where to live?

Maybe some people just worry too much.

There are individuals and groups out there who worry or think a lot about the air out there and how it affects people. Maybe you're aware of their efforts to protect children and others most at risk when breathing dirty air.

What about you?

What are your thoughts on the interconnectivity of real estate markets and industrial operations and whether there is some sort of fatal disconnect at some point in the process between approving housing developments and concern for the health and safety of homebuyers?