SALT LAKE CITY — A storm that pushed through Utah early this week proved to be beneficial for the state's mountains, bringing in over 1½ feet of snow in some areas.
Researchers say strong winds ahead of it also brought in "a huge amount of dust" from the dried Sevier Lake in central Utah to the southern half of the Wasatch Front. It likely did the same for areas by the Great Salt Lake, said Ben Abbott, an associate professor of environmental science at BYU.
Yet, he says it's unclear how much dust came off the lake or where it went because there aren't enough dust monitors around the lake to sufficiently study one of the largest concerns with low lake levels.
That's why Abbott, also the director of a group called Grow The Flow, a Great Salt Lake-focused initiative led by the nonprofit Conserve Utah Valley, supported a $651,000 budget request that the Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner had requested to establish a network of dust monitors by the lake.
That request, however, didn't appear in the state's proposed budget that totaled close to $30 billion released last week.
"We need monitors to be able to protect the people of Utah and know how serious of an issue this is," he said. "This is absolutely the top priority, in my opinion, of what we should be doing for Great Salt Lake."
Senate leaders say the budget has yet to be finalized. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said on Tuesday it's "on the list" of items still being considered before the budget is finalized by the end of the week.
"Whether it gets funded or not, I don't know," he said. "We're looking at it."
A call for monitors
The funding request would allow the Utah Division of Air Quality to compile an analysis of dust issues, Tim Davis, deputy commissioner of the Great Salt Lake, told state lawmakers on Jan. 27.
The Great Salt Lake Strike Team — a combination of state and university researchers — published a report earlier this year that highlighted where the lake's "dust hot spots" are, many of which are by Farmington and Bear River bays.
"Great Salt Lake dust plumes can have a significant impact on local air quality and can reduce the snowpack in the mountains throughout the basin due to enhanced melt rates," the report states. "With more than 2.66 million residents living downwind of the lake, the dust poses a health hazard due to increased (particulate matter) concentrations or due to chronic exposures to carcinogenic elements such as arsenic."
But health consequences from the dust remain unclear, Kevin Perry, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah, one of the report's authors, explained at the time. He said a series of monitors would be vital to study the concentrations of dust ending up in communities all across the Wasatch Front, as well as the short-term and long-term impacts of it.
Perry said none of the six existing monitors are "significantly close to the lake," and there aren't enough to study widespread community impacts. He added the state needs "real-time" and "filter-based" monitors to help study hourly concentrations and the composition of the dust to know if arsenic and other metals are coming into communities, and how much of it is.
Abbott said it could also spark "major tools" to manage lake dust, including a better understanding of what lake levels are needed to manage dust and creating new ways to forecast dust events.
"The first step to solve a problem is understanding how big it is. And until we measure what's coming off of Great Salt Lake, it'd be incredibly irresponsible to conclude that this isn't a problem," Abbott said. "(The monitors) let us know how serious of an issue this is, and who is being impacted."
Lake funding
Senate leaders added that there are some other projects targeting the Great Salt Lake that did receive funding, such as the Great Salt Lake long-term water program project. Lawmakers allocated $1 million for now, although the governor asked for $16 million.
They also allocated $4 million to the Deer Creek Intake Project, which includes an agreement to send 35,000 acre-feet of water to the lake through a release from Willard Bay, Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, explained.
"There are some other pieces in there. We also have some money, internally, in the Great Salt Lake fund," he said. "I wouldn't say we slowed down, but we did some things maybe in a different way."
Abbott said he's happy that the lake will receive some help, but he also believes Utah's water spending is nowhere near where it should be. That's why he said he's disappointed that dust monitors failed to miss at least the initial budget request.
He points to a Water Development Coordinating Council report last year, which warned Utah would need to spend nearly $60 billion to maintain drinking water, water quality and irrigation/canal needs across the state by 2060. A state audit found that the cost of mitigating Great Salt Lake dust could exceed $1.5 billion.
"The amount of investment that we're making to understand the impacts of Great Salt Lake and then fix them is woefully inadequate," he said. "We need to be thinking about this as a long-term investment in our way of life."
Contributing: Daniel Woodruff
