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As water levels dwindle, Utah legislature might address Great Salt Lake during a special session
Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz said there will likely be a special session this fall that could address the Great Salt Lake, which has recently fallen to dangerously low levels. Schultz told the Great Salt Lake Collaborative on Thursday he’s asking...
August 1, 2025
Great Salt Lake issues to be part of Utah legislature's special session
diversions and impacts from drought and climate change. It presents a significant public health threat in the form of toxic dust storms from an exposed lake bed (arsenic is among the naturally occurring minerals), reduced snowpack that feeds into Utah's...
August 1, 2025
Great Salt Lake drops to a low kicking off forced conservation measures
as a result of water diversions and impacts from drought and a changing climate, lead to exposed lake bed and potentially toxic dust storms (arsenic and other minerals are naturally occurring in the lake). Under new laws passed by the Utah State...
July 29, 2025
Cha-ching! Why is the Great Salt Lake set to get a massive infusion of cash?
public health and wildlife across northern Utah and beyond with reduced snowpack that cuts into drinking water supplies, toxic dust storms and billions in lost economic development. The lake is a refuge for millions of migratory birds and other...
July 23, 2025
Proposed Great Salt Lake dust monitoring network sidesteps federal standards
Dust expert praises plan but raises concerns that it will dilute data and follow “scientifically indefensible” protocols. After fielding concerns over the shrinking Great Salt Lake for years, Utah regulators are getting to work building out an air...
July 2, 2025
More dust monitors planned for communities around Great Salt Lake
SALT LAKE CITY — More monitors will be installed in communities around the Great Salt Lake to better track and warn people about dust, the head of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality said. At a news conference on Tuesday with Great Salt Lake...
June 10, 2025
House Speaker floats new idea to help deal with Great Salt Lake dust
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's powerful Speaker of the House is floating a new idea to help deal with dust blowing into communities from a shrinking Great Salt Lake. "There’s several places across the Great Salt Lake that we can use the implementation of...
May 21, 2025
How a collapsing Great Salt Lake could take Utah’s economy — and maybe your employer — down with it
On top of environmental dangers, a new University of Utah study warns, a dried lake bed and toxic dust storms could bring huge business losses to the Wasatch Front. Spiraling dangers from a dried-up Great Salt Lake would gradually spread well beyond...
May 14, 2025
Great Salt Lake dust storm returns attention to air monitoring gaps
deeply concerned about what the shrinking Great Salt Lake means for our families and communities. More frequent and toxic dust storms, like the one on Sunday, April 27, are carrying dangerous pollutants from the lakebed and nearby tailings piles,...
April 29, 2025
UCLA says Utah lags on recycling wastewater. That’s not how the state sees it
the “baseline of quality of life” for the Salt Lake City area, he said. If it shrinks further, that would threaten to add toxic dust to the air, harm millions of migratory birds and damage the local economy. Because of that, the Legislature essentially...
April 25, 2025
Captured by satellite: Great Salt Lake's dust threatens air quality in Utah cities
conditions. One of the most concerning aspects of the lake's decline is the exposed lake bed and the potential for "toxic dust" (arsenic is among the naturally-occurring minerals in the lake bed). Research is under way currently to determine how much...
March 18, 2025
Youth activists push lawmakers to do more for Great Salt Lake
threat to the state and its people. There's reduced snowpack (95% of Utah's drinking water comes from snowpack), toxic dust storms from the receding lake bed and threats to public health and wildlife. Since the decline, lawmakers have passed dozens of...
February 12, 2025
Ex-Ogden City Council member lands role advocating for Great Salt Lake
Millions of migratory birds representing 338 species from every country in the Americas make their way to the Great Salt Lake each year to rest and rejuvenate. But what if that body of water — the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere — goes...
February 4, 2025
Farmers fear water grab: Week 2 recap of the Utah Legislature
Editor's note: This story is an excerpt from the Great Salt Lake Collaborative's weekly newsletter, Lake Effect from Jan. 31, 2025. To keep up-to-date on water news from around Utah with a focus on Great Salt Lake and the Colorado River, subscribe here...
January 31, 2025
Utah’s collegiate runners face a tough challenge: Bad air quality
Track and cross-country athletes talk about moving their training indoors on smoggy days, to avoid “track hack.” Nearly every day during the fall semester, collegiate runners tightened their laces for morning runs in the shadow of the mountains that...
January 27, 2025
Hundreds rally for more action to save the Great Salt Lake
a healthy ecological level. Environmentalists and scientists have warned that a shrinking Great Salt Lake could lead to toxic dust storms, reduced snow and harms to wildlife and public health. "We know how vital it is to our health, to our way of life...
January 27, 2025
New report says Great Salt Lake still at risk, needs long-term support
Bear River Bay and Farmington Bay (which includes cities from Ogden down past Salt Lake City) at risk for potentially "toxic dust," which includes arsenic in the lake bed. The shrinking Great Salt Lake presents an economic (more than $2 billion a year,...
January 14, 2025
Utah argues US Magnesium is ‘unable or unwilling’ to protect the Great Salt Lake as judge appoints outsider to run the company
US Magnesium says it stopped building a retaining wall meant to keep toxic waste out of the Great Salt Lake because it’s no longer mining magnesium and therefore, according to the company, is not creating waste to mitigate. State and federal agencies...
December 20, 2024
Video: New stream gauges to help track if conserved water really makes it to Great Salt Lake
couple of years thanks to record-breaking winters. The impacts of a drying lake can be catastrophic for northern Utah — toxic dust storms, reduced snowpack and water supply and harms to public health and wildlife. The lake's declines have been...
November 26, 2024
Video: Great Salt Lake drops back down to 2021 levels
News reported that more of the state had begun to slip into drought. The impacts of a drying Great Salt Lake are severe. Toxic dust storms (arsenic is among the chemicals in the dust bed), reduced snowpack in the mountains that provides northern Utah's...
November 22, 2024
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