Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a rich ecosystem, a vital home for migratory birds, and a boon for the state’s economy. But it’s also drying up, and as it dries, it releases harmful dust that disproportionately affects certain racial and ethnic communities in Salt Lake City. Higher lake levels could reduce this burden, according to new research published in One Earth.
The water level (elevation) of the Great Salt Lake is currently 4,192 feet (1,278 meters) above sea level, about 22 feet (6.7 meters) lower than its historic high reached in 1986. Diversions of water from the lake’s tributaries for agriculture, mining, and other human uses, in addition to climate change, have all contributed to the decline.
Airborne dust from the shorelines of the drying lake creates particulate matter pollution that can cause respiratory problems.
In addition to the health harms caused by particulate matter alone, Carmen Valdez, a policy associate with Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah), worries about toxins carried by the dust, including heavy metals, contaminants from algal blooms, and human-made chemicals. The Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake, with no natural outlet, so “every hazardous material that’s been used in the Great Basin has flowed down into the lake,” Valdez said.
Recent research published in Atmospheric Environment shows that dust from the Great Salt Lake has higher oxidative potential—a measure of reactivity that indicates how a pollutant may harm human cells—than dust from other regions.
But the effects of Great Salt Lake’s dust are “differently felt in different communities,” said Sara Grineski, a sociologist at the University of Utah and first author of the One Earth study.
Since the early 20th century, people have moved to Salt Lake City seeking economic opportunities, affordable housing, and the Mormon community. Redlining, a discriminatory practice that describes limiting access to financial services to people in specific geographic areas, influenced the settlement patterns of these immigrants.
Redlining pushed many people of color into the western, more industrialized side of the city. These neighborhoods continue to be exposed to higher concentrations of dust and other air pollution than the majority-white neighborhoods of eastern Salt Lake City, according to a NASA study.
Simulating Salt Lake Storms
To determine how lake management policies could affect dust exposure for different ethnic groups and people of varying socioeconomic statuses, the research team simulated how dust pollution in the area would change under four hypothetical lake levels: no lake, very low lake, current lake, and healthy lake. The healthy lake simulation reflected lake levels recommended by Utah’s Great Salt Lake Commissioner and the Utah Rivers Council.
The simulations were based on a combination of data from four significant dust storms that happened in the spring of 2022, a model of winds and atmospheric transport in the region, and a dust forecast model from NOAA.
The modeling was “impressive and comprehensive,” said Thomas Gill, an Earth scientist at the University of Texas at El Paso who was not involved in the research, though he added that using dust storm data from before 2022 could result in even more accurate simulations.
“If we raise the level of the lake, we reduce the dust exposure for everyone, and we narrow that [exposure] gap—which is pretty large here in Salt Lake.”
After simulating dust transport at the various lake levels, the team analyzed how dust pollution would overlap with different demographic groups in the Salt Lake City area. They found that at current lake levels, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics living in the northwestern parts of the city suffer some of the worst dust pollution from the drying Great Salt Lake. These communities also had the most to gain from restoring lake levels.
Though the healthy lake scenario improved dust pollution for all areas of Salt Lake City, the improvements were most pronounced for neighborhoods with large populations of Pacific Islanders, followed by Hispanics.
“If we raise the level of the lake, we reduce the dust exposure for everyone, and we narrow that [exposure] gap—which is pretty large here in Salt Lake,” Grineski said. “It’s definitely a win-win.”
The findings align with previous work from Grineski and others indicating that race and ethnicity, particularly whiteness, strongly influence the amount of particulate matter pollution from all sources faced by Salt Lake City neighborhoods.
Healthy Lakes, Healthy People
The study is the first to evaluate disparate impacts of dust from the Great Salt Lake in such detail, said Gill, but its results aren’t surprising “at all,” said Kime Lao, a public health expert, community advocate, and member of the Pacific Islander community in Salt Lake City.
“Dust pollution increases health issues for those in the [Pacific Islander] population,” Lao wrote in an email. “With limited access to superior health services and treatment, dust pollution creates more problems and barriers to the [Pacific Islander] community.”
Lisia Satini, program manager at the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition, agreed. “We have a lot of issues with asthma,” she said. “And there are so many factors that play into it.”
“Use less in agriculture, use less in mining, use less in the city. Just try to conserve the water together so that more of it gets into the lake.”
Grineski said more research is needed to determine whether reductions in exposure to dust pollution associated with raising the lake level could translate to actual improvements in health. But in general, she said, fewer dust storms mean fewer respiratory issues.
Regardless, higher lake levels are one way to reduce dust storms, said Lao and Grineski. And achieving higher lake levels boils down to reducing water use across the Great Basin.
“We have to get more water into the lake, so we need to use less, right?” Grineski said. “Use less in agriculture, use less in mining, use less in the city. Just try to conserve the water together so that more of it gets into the lake.”
—Grace van Deelen (@GVD__), Staff Writer
Citation: van Deelen, G. (2024), A fuller Great Salt Lake would likely narrow an environmental health gap, Eos, 105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EO240436. Published on 1 October 2024.
Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.
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