As water levels on the Great Salt Lake drop to new lows this fall, researchers are racing to understand a hazard that threatens 2,000,000+ people living nearby: Toxic dust.
Dec. 7, 2022, 2:00 PM UTCSALT LAKE CITY — Parts of the Great Salt Lake hardly resembled a lake at all this fall.
But even those in wealthy enclaves away from the most visible sources of pollution won’t be spared from the dust. New research suggests arsenic-rich concentrations of dust from any source are the highest in wealthy Salt Lake area communities and that fast-growing suburbs could face the brunt of the dust storms’ impact.
Molly Blakowski, a doctoral student and dust researcher at Utah State University who regularly hiked a 20-mile loop of the playa to collect dust samples, said she would never venture out with less than 4 liters of water. Some moments, it can be hard to see more than 20 feet ahead. The lake bed contains pollutants like arsenic, distributed widely across the surface, which could be an indication that some of it occurs naturally, Perry said.
This isn’t a problem caused by climate change; Utahans are simply consuming too much water for agriculture, industry and residential use from the overtaxed rivers that feed the terminal lake. Modeling suggests human water diversion has reduced the lake level by about 11 feet, the Utah State research shows. Meanwhile, increased evaporation due to climate change has caused the lake level to drop less than half a foot.
The traps were left out for months and captured everything: dust from the lake, from local construction and from nearby deserts. west side was deemed a “hazardous” real estate investment in the 1930s by the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corp. In the winter, the word “inversion” is a dirty word for Salt Lake residents. During an inversion, a layer of warm air settles over the valley like a lid for the bowl, trapping everything below as if it were a cap.
Overall, emissions have improved in Salt Lake City, mostly because of vehicle emissions standards enacted by the Obama administration’s EPA, according to Perry. The“When we switch to electric vehicles, our air quality is going to improve dramatically,” Perry said.
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