The shrinking shorelines of the Great Salt Lake are exposing a huge community problem: Dust storms that create concerns ranging from bad air quality and poor health to negative impacts on snowmelt and agriculture. Who and where is most at risk? A University of Utah research team may have the answer, andthey’ve invented a tool to predict what could be coming down the line. Utah Insight host Lauren Steinbrecher explores the emerging research and search for solutions; plus, how we can protect ourselves as the state finds ways to move forward.
The lakebed research lab
On the edge of Syracuse, Utah, Dr. Kevin Perry unfurled a chain that clanked as it released its grip from a metal pole, opening a locked gate that guarded a non-descript dirt road.
The University of Utah Atmospheric Sciences professor embarked on his weekly research-gathering ritual that involves driving until the dirt road ends, then loading up a bicycle trailer and taking off toward his open-air lab—only accessible by bike, two and a half miles away.
Perry’s piece of Great Salt Lake research done by the University of Utah looks much different than that of his colleagues.
“Yes, I'm the one who gets to enjoy Mother Nature,” he said, with a smile.
Riding deep into the Great Salt Lake playa, Perry stopped after a quarter mile at a spot once only reachable by boat in Farmington Bay, and perfect for the day’s project.
Over the course of the last 30-plus years, the withering lake shoreline has turned the bay into a barren expanse.
“Farmington Bay is basically dried up, with the exception of the Jordan River that flows through,” Perry said.
“It's not being caused by drought. It's not being caused by climate change. It's being [caused] by overuse of water,” he explained.“We use 30% more water than what is sustainable for the lake.”
That overuse, he said, has exposed 800 square miles of lakebed.
Perry described the problem it creates: “When the wind gets strong and the playa is dry, it can create dust storms that go into the surrounding communities.”
Standing in an area visibly lighter than the ground around it, Perry categorized it as a “dust hotspot.”
“That indicates that it’s drier than the surroundings, and it has a thin crust on it,” he explained, kicking the ground and demonstrating how easily dust rose into the air.
Perry has painstakingly mapped out nearly 700 dust hot spots around the whole lake, and he’s conducted soil tests that revealed cancer-causing carcinogens in the lakebed.
“The one that we're most concerned about is arsenic,” the professor noted. “Every single measurement that I took over the 800 square miles of lakebed had higher arsenic concentrations in it than the EPA would deem healthy.”
How much higher?
“More than a factor of ten,” he answered.
Using a mobile wind machine, Perry can measure the force it takes to kick dust into the air, and toward homes.
He explained that winds of 18 to 25 miles per hour in Farmington Bay can create dust events; winds stronger than 25 miles per hour can create dust storms.
“What we really need to answer the question is: How much of that dust is making it to the surrounding communities?” Perry said.
A problem understood, but understudied
The state’s Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner also wants to know how much dust is blowing off the lake.
“We know for a fact that the dust is bad for people,” said Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed. “It’s been identified as being unhealthy at certain levels.”
The Office of the Great Salt Lake Commissioner is helping finance an expansion of dust monitoring by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality (DAQ).
“That will provide us all much, much needed information on how much dust is coming off the lakebed, what's in the dust, how frequently these dust events are happening, and all of those are very important questions,” he said.
“It’s something that we have understudied,” Steed explained, later adding that, “We cannot make good policy in the absence of good data. Getting that good data is first.”
Standing on the roof of the DAQ building near North Temple and Interstate 215 in Salt Lake City, Air Monitoring Section manager Bo Call pointed toward large humming metal boxes with metal poles jutting into the air, explaining how the machines gather dust data.
“Our current monitoring sites are really population-based,” Call said. “They're not necessarily best suited to see dust coming off of the lake.”
Some of the new monitors, he explained, will be installed in west Davis County closer to and adjacent to the lake.
They also plan to install monitors in other areas known to kick up dust like the Sevier Lake dry lakebed near Delta, Ibapah near Nevada, and Wendover near the West Desert.
“For the dust monitoring, we’re looking at a couple of things. And one is: Where is the air coming from?” Call said. “We want to be able to monitor further away to see what’s coming to us, and then be able to monitor once it gets here and see what’s in it.”
The monitors will stand on top of small trailers, that Call explained will connect to computer equipment inside the trailers, capturing and recording dust data and conditions.
DAQ technicians will visit the test sites at regular intervals to collect filters so the dust can be tested and analyzed in a lab.
“For the filters, it's all about what's in the dust, and is it something that we need to be concerned about,” Call said.
He added that the monitors will provide real-time updates during dust storms.
“That's really about, can people do something? Can they step inside? Can they avoid it?” he explained. “Is there a way that we can warn folks, or they can at least know that it’s happening right now?”
Modeling a new form of ‘severe weather’
The DAQ dust study will take time to get up and running, as the agency works on building new sites.
In the meantime, a University of Utah Atmospheric Sciences professor has found a way to predict the path of Great Salt Lake playa particulates.
Sitting at his computer typing countless lines of code, Dr. Derek Mallia explained how, using millions of data points, he’s created a dust modeling map that can run simulations.
The map relies on the information from Dr. Kevin Perry’s hot spot studies, as well as currently available DAQ measurements.
“These air quality models allow us to kind of estimate what dust exposure might be like in an area where we do not have an air quality monitoring station,” Mallia explained, saying the map can be used for “filling in gaps of where we do not have data.”
The map can model what dust exposure looks like in surrounding communities based on higher and lower lake levels.
That will allow researchers to look at dust storms and run scenarios, he explained, to see how different water levels impact amount of dust.
“We can see how that dust storm might have looked if we actually had healthy levels,” he said.
He hopes it can be a valuable tool for policymakers.
“They can actually see, what are the direct impacts,” he explained. “If we keep letting the Great Salt Lake shrink, this is the kind of dust exposure we'll have. But if we kind of start filling up the Great Salt Lake, this is where we'll get the biggest bang for our buck in terms of reducing dust.”
Mallia wants to expand the model, describing how it could potentially show how dust is impacting the speed of snow melt in the mountains, or its effects on crop growth and agriculture.
He talked about how it could also be used to warn the public when a dust storm is on the horizon—essentially, radar for dust.
In theory, the dust map could give forecasts out to 24 or 36 hours, Mallia explained, giving people time to plan and take precautions.
“Kind of like how you would forecast like a hurricane, or floods, or even a wildfire,” Mallia said. “We need to start thinking about dust as another form of severe weather.”
Protecting against bad air quality
If this is our new severe weather reality, how do Utahns stay safe?
Standing in her kitchen, Mallory DiazVela explained how the air inside our homes and living spaces can be even worse than outside, because particles are sucked in and then have nowhere to circulate.
“A lot of people don't realize just how much they're being impacted by their indoor air,” DiazVela said.
She is the Program and Grants manager at Utah Clean Air Partnership, or UCAIR, an organization that aims to educate the community on air quality impacts and teach the public actionable steps to stay safe and reduce emissions.
Poor indoor air quality can make allergies worse, DiazVela explained, and can also negatively impact cognitive function.
“Not just cognitive function, but mental health as well,” DiazVela said. “When we breathe in poor air a lot, it can also increase symptoms of depression and anxiety.”
To combat bad indoor air quality, DiazVela suggested investing in an air purifier, preferably one that is HEPA-certified.
She also showed a cost-conscious option, by explaining how to build a homemade air purifier using household items.
“This is like your typical twenty by twenty filter that you can get at the home goods store,” she explained, holding up a furnace air filter.
She set it against the back of a regular box fan, showing how someone can use duct tape, bungee cords, or special clips to secure the filter to the fan.
Her advice is to create a “clean room” in the home.
“At least having one of these running in a room where you're spending most of your time—so your home office, your bedroom at night when you're sleeping—will help keep you protected from those dust particles,” she said.
On top of the air purifier, DiazVela recommended installing a smart thermostat that will help a home’s HVAC system run more efficiently and send filter replacement reminders.
UCAIR is planning to launch two rebate programs to distribute air purifiers and smart thermostats for free.
“Those individual actions do make a difference,” DiazVela said, “because when we all take them together, it makes a very big collective change.”
Growing dust disparities in the community
Which communities and populations should be paying extra attention to those safety steps, and could be most exposed during Great Salt Lake dust storms?
Dr. Sara Grineski, University of Utah Sociology professor, used Dr. Derek Mallia’s dust model—which drew upon Dr. Kevin Perry’s data—to break down where the dust is blowing, and who it’s impacting.
She had already been part of a past dust health impacts study in Texas, saying they found effects between dust storms and hospitalizations for respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia.
On top of that, she pointed to other scientific studies and literature finding illnesses associated with dust, even higher levels of respiratory death.
“So, things like influenza A, bacterial pneumonia, valley fever, as well as attacks of asthma and COPD,” she said.
Sitting at her computer, Grineski pulled up charts and graphs born out of mountains of statistics and data points.
When looking at simple geography, perhaps not surprisingly Grineski found that Tooele and Salt Lake Counties have the highest levels of dust under current lake levels.
In addition to geography, Grineski used Mallia’s map and census tract data to calculate average dust exposure among different demographics.
She described how the statistical analyses show “a pretty clear story” that dust exposure disproportionately impacts socially marginalized communities.
“We found that here in the Wasatch Front, people who are Pacific Islander had the highest levels of exposure to dust of any of the racial ethnic groups here locally,” Grineski said. “We found that Hispanic Latino people had the second highest.”
They also found high levels of exposure for people who are not U.S. citizens and who are in immigrant communities, she noted.
In addition to race and ethnicity, Grineski looked at socioeconomic factors like education level.
“People who didn't have a high school diploma also had disproportionately high levels of dust,” she said, later adding another disparity she found: “People who don't have health insurance.”
Why is that?
Grineski explained it means the dust is blowing toward where those socioeconomic groups live.
“To understand that, we have to look at historical patterns of settlement in the valley,” she said. Grineski discussed finding further research showing groups like Pacific Islanders settling in the northwest part of the Salt Lake valley and present-day Tooele County in the late 1800s.
The dust model shows those disparities only getting worse the lower the lake drops, and she explained health equity between groups improves when lake levels rise.
Her team did not find inequalities based on income or housing tenure between renting and owning.
Grineski explained that the next step is to try to calculate or estimate health care costs associated with the dust.
“The study that we did is like one more reason why it's important to address the water levels at the lake, in addition to all the other reasons why it's important,” Grineski concluded. “Migratory birds, brine shrimp, lake effect snow—all these reasons are important, but this human health and environmental justice piece matters too.”
What will it take to fill the lake?
The Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s Office is paying close attention to the findings from University of Utah research pipeline.
“I think now we're starting to see that an unhealthy lake actually does have direct consequences to you, and to your family, and to your business,” said Commissioner Steed.
His office is working toward bring water back into the lake.
The Commissioner’s Office recently received 50 million dollars of federal funding to go toward incentives for water rights owners, water efficiency projects, and habitat recovery programs.
For the first two on that list, Steed explained it’ll involve working with municipalities, canal companies, and farmers and ranchers.
It’s meant as a good measure, but he indicated, not a total fix.
“In reality, we have a long-term problem. These lease programs are designed to be short term,” Steed noted.
To stabilize water levels, Steed said they need about 250,000 acre-feet of water—or about 250,000 football fields a foot deep.
He said they can make up about half through municipal and industrial, but will need to make up the rest in other ways.
That’s why Steed is urging everyone to take action to help turn the lake around.
“Long term, all of us need to adopt better water saving practices,” he said. “Even simple acts such as watering a little less could provide a substantial amount of water.”
If everyone watered cut lawn watering by 30%, Steed said it could save 109,000 acre-feet of water.
“We need to make sure that we understand that the lake's in trouble,” Steed warned. “Your choices today and how you interact with water can actually help benefit the lake or hurt the lake.”
Researching new solutions for a ‘will of the people’ problem
Back out on the playa in his open-air lab, Dr. Perry is taking action of his own by running new tests for the Department of Natural Resources.
“We’re trying to come up with ideas on how we can reduce the dust coming from the lakebed,” Perry explained, saying that in the event of a failure to save the lake, “we have to understand what our options are.”
One possibility he’s exploring is watering the dirt to keep the hot spots wet and dust crust intact.
“We’re trying to figure out if we should use fresh water, or if we should use salt water. Which one will reset the crust? Which one will make the crust last the longest and have the hardest crust?” Perry explained. “We don't know that answer yet, but that's what we're trying to find out with this experiment.”
Perry marked off different sections in the day’s hot spot study area, and then watered each area with fresh water and salt water of different salinities, studying how long it took to dry and the amount of wind it would take to kick up dust.
He explained the potential solution could involve spraying the lakebed down, perhaps one to two times a year.
“There's actually fresh water beneath Great Salt Lake that you could actually tap into and use that water to periodically reset the crust,” he said.
As part of the larger study, Perry said they’re trying to figure out what dust mitigation would cost.
In California at the similarly dust-challenged Owens Lake, he explained the state spent more than $2.5 billion to mitigate an area smaller than Farmington Bay.
That’s why the true solution he sees doesn’t lie within the lakebed, but within all Utahns.
“Saving Great Salt Lake is within our power,” Perry said.
Like Steed, he talked about the need to tackle water, dust, and the dying Great Salt Lake as a community, together.
“This is no longer really a scientific problem. This is a cultural problem. This is a will of the people problem,” Perry said. “If we want to save the lake, then we have to alter how we use water and our relationship with water. But it is solvable, and it is something that we can do.”
