Utah News Dispatch
A Utah researcher rings up the costs of keeping Great Salt Lake dust at bay
The shores of the Great Salt Lake near Syracuse are pictured on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A Utah professor is laying out solutions to help keep dust containing heavy metals in the bed of the Great Salt Lake and out of the lungs of 2.5 million people living along the Wasatch Front.
Kevin Perry says the state could water the bare lakebed like a lawn, create a sea of solar panels, or till it like a farm. Workers could scatter seeds for tall grass or seal it with brine. They could also flood it with water or lay down gravel and brush piles.
This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake — and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late.
Perry, with the University of Utah’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, analyzed those options and more, pointing out their pros and cons in a report made public on Thursday. He concluded that none are cheap, with each costing billions of dollars for 50 years of dust mitigation.
“It should be a wake-up call on how expensive this can actually be,” Perry said.
No one strategy is the answer, he said. Containing the dust will take a number of measures to account for differences in soil and other variables at spots along the lake.
All considered, restoring the lake to good health, which state leaders have deemed a priority, seems to be the most sustainable and cost-effective long-term strategy, Perry said. Doing so will reduce the need for intervention and related costs of equipment and ongoing maintenance, he said.
With his analysis complete and the data available for review by Utah officials and the public, Perry said, “we can actually make informed decisions, as opposed to just thinking, ‘Oh, well, you know, if we don’t restore the lake, it won’t be that expensive to deal with the dust.’”
In crunching the numbers, he found the measures would start at about $3 million per square mile over 50 years to bring in “artificial roughness” such as piled brush or mulch, which can reduce wind speed and trap sediment. The price would swell to roughly $450 million for “precision surface wetting” using hoses or sprinklers.
To cover the 70 square miles of current dust “hot spots,” the range expands to $3.2 billion to $31 billion. The report notes the price will rise if the lake dries up further.
The lake is parched because of drought, climate change and redirection of water for farming and other uses. It reached a record low in 2022, made some recovery, then dropped back down to end last year at its third-lowest level since 1903.
The dry lakebed contains arsenic, a carcinogen, and other metals that can lead to heart disease and asthma. Researchers believe they occur naturally and as a result of pollution.
Sen. Scott Sandall, a primary sponsor of water legislation in Utah, told reporters Thursday that keeping heavy metals in the lake, rather than the air, “is the No. 1 concern.”
“I’m not going to negate the idea that we do have dust that’s coming off the lake. That’s evident,” said Sandall, R-Tremonton. He said questions remain about how much is blowing into Utah communities and what exactly it contains.
Perry said a network of dust monitors being installed this winter will help answer those questions and determine where mitigation is most needed.
He noted Utah has made strides in improving air quality in the last two generations, but suffers from stubborn pollution at times.
In the winter, smog settles over Salt Lake City and surrounding suburbs because of geography and a weather phenomenon that traps cold air in the valley. In summer, wildfire smoke and ozone pollution take hold. Spring and fall bring cleaner air.
“But if the dust becomes frequent, those are the time periods when the dust is most likely to occur, and we go from having seasonal air quality challenges to year-round air quality challenges,” Perry said. “That would be a step back from the gains the state has made over the last 40 years.”
