Toxic dust from the Great Salt Lake could cost Utah billions, and much more.
800 square miles of Great Salt Lake lakebed is exposed. The longer it stays exposed, the more it’s creating airborne dust, which blows into Utah residents’ neighborhoods and creates a massive public health threat.
The state has spent millions conducting studies to get the full scope of the threat, but we know that we should not wait until we have all the data before we act.
In an effort to inspire more efficient action on restoring the lake and covering the threats of the dust, UPHE coauthored a report that outlines the full scope of the issue, and the easiest way out.
UPHE’s cofounder and president recently had an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, where he wrote, “By allowing massive diversions of the lake’s inlets, Utah is following an all-too-familiar pattern of government waiting too long to protect citizens from environmental hazards, industrial toxins and dangerous consumer products despite more than enough evidence to demand intervention. Millions of people have been victimized by leaded paint and gasoline, asbestos, pesticides like DDT, cigarettes, oxycontin, PFAS, BPA, and nuclear radiation because of the government’s to failure act. No one knows this painful story better than Utahns, tens of thousands of whom became downwinder victims of nuclear radiation they were told was safe.
“Hoping to break that tragic cycle, UPHE physicians, who specialize in the health consequences of air pollution and environmental toxins, reviewed all the relevant medical research, including over 500 studies, and compiled the most comprehensive document on the public health hazards of allowing the Great Salt Lake to disappear. Our report, Downwind, should be another wake up call.”
“Our health is already being impacted by GSL dust, not just from obvious dust storms. The smallest and therefore most dangerous particles become atmospheric during much more frequent, minimal winds. These particles are not reliably detected by dust monitors. They stay in the atmosphere for weeks or longer, perpetuating human exposure. For multiple reasons, the health hazard exceeds that indicated by standard air quality monitors.
“Natural lakebed dust is toxic by itself, because once inhaled it is treated by the body as a foreign invasion, triggering an inflammatory chemical cascade. But that response is magnified by tag along toxins of many different types from multiple sources.
“Kennecott’s mining operation has contaminated the Great Salt Lake ecosystem —surface and ground water, air, and soil — with carcinogenic and neurotoxic heavy metals for more than 120 years. Herbicides and insecticides have been sprayed relentlessly around the lake’s shores for decades. Mag Corp has poured deadly dioxins, furans, and PCBs into the same general area for 50 years. At least 28 sewage treatment plants, which were never designed to sequester toxic chemicals, discharge “forever chemicals,” PAHs, plastic nanoparticles, and pharmaceutical metabolites into the lake and its tributaries. Radionuclides from decades of Nevada nuclear tests still contaminate the Great Basin and the lake bed. Urban air pollution combines with the dust in complex atmospheric reactions to create new toxic particles and gases. An expanding dry lake is a growing catalyst for more ozone.
“Exposure to multiple different toxins, each at supposedly “safe” concentrations, is not safe. The cumulative toxicity is at least additive, and can be even synergistic.
“Elsewhere in the world where lakes have been siphoned dry, public health consequences have been profound, with dramatic increases in numerous diseases and decreases in life expectancy. Fetuses, infants, and young children are the most victimized because the harm can be life-long and irreversible, though it may not manifest until decades later. Harm from these environmental toxins has been documented even in subsequent, unexposed generations, indicating genetic and epigenetic damage.
“Utah’s lawmakers are poised to drain even more water from the lake via the Bear River Project, inland ports, wetlands destruction, data centers, and nuclear power plants—all of which is the exact opposite of preserving the lake. The “precautionary principle” in medicine calls for preventive intervention to avoid health hazards, if potential harm is plausible and consistent with established research, even if that evidence is incomplete. The precautionary principle must be applied now to saving Great Salt Lake.”
Our report takes a deep dive into all of the toxins which have made their way to Great Salt Lake over decades of expansion and industry.
Kevin Perry told the Tribune that he didn’t see a reason to worry about ultrafine particles, because they are usually products of high temperature combustion. However, newer science has found significant numbers of ultrafines and accumulation-mode particles in desert dust.
Salt Lake Tribune coverage of our report.
Grist coverage of our report.
Dr. Moench’s full op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune.