A drying Great Salt Lake is spewing toxic dust. It could cost Utah billions.

Dust rising from the dry Great Salt Lake bed poses a serious public health threat that policymakers and the scientific community are not taking seriously enough, two environmental nonprofits warned in a recent report.

In 2022, the Great Salt Lake reached a record low and was on the verge of ecological collapse. This has threatened millions of migratory birds, as well as multimillion-dollar lake industries such as brine shrimp harvesting, mining and tourism. The lake has only recovered after several winters of above-average snowfall, but it is dangerously close to falling to another record low.

The lake bed, covering about 800 square miles, is exposed, baking and eroding, posing a huge threat to public health. Dust storms, large and small, have become commonplace on the Wasatch Front, an urban area where most Utahns live.

report Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the Utah Rivers Council say Utah's “baby steps” approach to dust control falls short of what's needed to prevent a long-term public health crisis. Failure to address these problems could saddle the state with billions of dollars in cleanup costs, they said. “We shouldn't wait until we have all the data before we act,” Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, said in an interview. “The overall message of this report is that the health hazards have so far been under-analyzed by the scientific community.”

However, after reviewing the report, two scientists who regularly study the Great Salt Lake said the nonprofit's findings were based on speculation rather than documented evidence.

The report warns that while much of the discussion about dust and new government-funded dust monitoring network While focusing on large particles called PM10, Utah must also be concerned about tiny particles 0.1 microns or smaller called “ultrafine particles.” Almost invisible pollutants can penetrate a person's lungs, bloodstream, placenta and brain.

Lake dust may also contain toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides and PFASor “forever chemicals,” Moench warned, given the history of mining, agriculture and manufacturing in the region.

“Dust from the Great Salt Lake is more toxic than dust from other sources in the Great Basin,” Moench said. “It is almost certain that virtually everyone living on the Wasatch Front has every important organ contaminated by microscopic pollution particles.”

If the lake remains at its record low elevation of 4,188 feet above sea level, dust control could cost between $3.4 billion and $11 billion over 20 years, depending on the methods used, the report said.

Non-profit organizations sought Lake Owens in California develop your assessments. The officials are there used various methods to combat the release of dust from the dry lake.for example, planting vegetation, shallow flood water pipes and gravel dumping.

The Great Salt Lake needs to rise to 4,198 feet to reach its minimum healthy elevation, state resource managers say. It currently sits at 4191.3 feet in the south branch and 4190.8 feet in the north branch.

The lake's decline is almost entirely human-caused as cities, farmers and industry siphon water from its tributaries. Climate change is also exacerbating the problem, wreaking havoc on Utah's snowpack and rivers. Warmer summers also speed up the rate of evaporation from the lake.

The two nonprofits behind the report, Utah Physicians and the Utah Rivers Council, opposed recent toxic dust cleanup solutions proposed by politicians and researchers. Their report criticized the proposal from state House Speaker Mike Schultz, a Republican. build berms around dust hot spots therefore, salt water can restore the protective crust. It also rejected the offer extract groundwater deep under the lake bed and use it to keep your playa moist.

“Costly stop-gap measures like these appear to be at the core of the state’s short-sighted leadership in the Great Salt Lake,” the groups wrote in their report, “which could trigger a serious exodus from Utah among wealthier households and the younger population.”

Bill Johnson, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, who led the study of the aquifer under the lakesaid he agreed with the report's core message that filling the Great Salt Lake should be a state priority rather than managing it as a long-term, costly source of pollution.

“We don’t want it to be just about dust management and we forget about the lake,” Johnson said. “I don't think anyone is suggesting that at the moment.”

Johnson noted that it took decades of unsustainable water use for the Great Salt Lake to shrink to its current size, and it will likely take decades for it to fill.

Kevin Perry, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah and one of the lead researchers studying Great Salt Lake dust, said Utah Doctors and the Utah Rivers Council asked him in the spring for feedback on their report.

“This is a much more balanced version of the document than the one I saw last March,” he said of the report. “It's still alarmism.”

Perry agreed with the report's findings that many unknowns still don't know what the dust from the lake bottom contains and what Utahns potentially inhale when it becomes airborne. He said he remains skeptical that ultrafine particles are a concern in lake bottom dust. These pollutants are typically produced by high-temperature combustion sources such as diesel engines.

“In the report, they just threw it all at the wall and said it should be there,” Perry said. “I kept trying to convince them to limit the discussion to things that we had actually documented.”

However, the report's chapter outlining cost estimates for dust control is largely consistent with Perry's own research. Dust control costs astronomical amounts in the long run, he said, and also risks leaving permanent scars from gravel fills or irrigation lines on the landscape.

“Yes, we can reduce dust levels using engineering solutions,” Perry said, “but we really don’t want to go down that route unless we have to.”

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