SALT LAKE CITY — A dust event near Saltair over the weekend highlights how dust is still flying off the Great Salt Lake despite its recent gains, a local environmental group says.
They add that it also highlights the need for more dust monitoring around the lake.
"We often think of the impacts of Great Salt Lake dust on our public health as a far-off, distant future. The reality is that dust storms ... are infiltrating our communities and impacting the air we breathe today," Jake Dreyfous, managing director of Grow the Flow.
The Great Salt Lake's southern arm is up to 4,193.4 feet elevation, nearly 1½ feet from its low point at the end of the last irrigation season, but a little more than 1½ feet below its peak last year. Its northern arm remains about a foot below the southern section, per U.S. Geological Survey data.
With 8.7 inches of snow-water equivalent still left in the mountains within the lake's basin, nearly half of its peak this year, the lake could make some additional gains, depending on how much of that water ends up in it.
Yet despite its gains, Grow the Flow points out that it remains only about 40% full by volume, leaving hundreds of square miles of lakebed exposed. A cold front that pushed through the region on Sunday visibly kicked up dust, which is often deposited in nearby communities.
That's a problem because — as documented in a Great Salt Lake Strike Team report earlier this year — the dust can create a "health hazard" from increases in particulate matter concentrations, as well as "chronic exposures to carcinogenic elements such as arsenic."
"We're deeply concerned about what the shrinking Great Salt Lake means for our families and communities," said Carmen Valdez, senior policy associate for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, in a statement on Monday.
State air quality officials aren't surprised by the recent event. They point out that "unvegetated or disturbed soils" across the state have the potential to release dust in the air during wind events.
Dry lakebeds, such as the Great Salt Lake, pose greater concerns because of the "small size of the particles" and large surface area to pull from, said Bryce Bird, director of Utah Division of Air Quality.
"The conditions in the spring and summer are favorable for creating large dust events," he wrote in an email to KSL.com. "In the spring, the freezing and thawing of surface moisture can loosen the protective crust that may otherwise protect the surface from wind erosion."
Utah lawmakers ultimately set aside $150,000 in funds this year toward air quality monitoring, including ongoing funding for personnel. But that was below the $650,000 that the Office of the Great Salt Lake requested to help the Utah Division of Air Quality compile an analysis of dust issues by the lake.
Brian Steed, Utah's Great Salt Lake commissioner, said last month that his office intends to help the division acquire the monitors through other means and set up a monitor "distribution scheme" across communities near the lake or as soon as possible. This would help the state better understand where dust goes when it flies off the lake and other important datasets that can help the state manage dust impacts.
He added that the state has been "under monitoring" dust compared to other Western saline lakes with similar issues, such as Owens Lake or the Salton Sea in California.
On top of state funding, Bird said the Utah Division of Air Quality received federal grants to acquire more particulate air samplers and "low-cost" particulate sensors closer to dried portions of the Great Salt Lake. It's unclear how many sensors are needed to monitor its dust, but state officials plan to focus on communities east, north and south of the lake first as they build up a network.
"It would be helpful to have that baseline information," Steed said. "People want to know, and people want to know how much of a problem it is. Without those monitors, we don't have a full picture."
