SALT LAKE CITY — A new study finds that dealing with Great Salt Lake dust has trade-offs and ballooning costs.
The study, published Thursday by the University of Utah's Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, lists a number of options from gravel and straw to solar panels to cover the exposed lake bed and how much they could cost.
"Dust emissions from GSL represent an increasing public health and environmental concern as declining lake levels expose larger areas of playa," the study said.
More and more of the Great Salt Lake bed has been exposed as the lake declines. The study said that more than 800 square miles of lake bed are exposed. The exposed lakebed puts public health at risk in the form of dust storms blowing into communities. FOX 13 News has documented dust storms blowing into Ogden, Farmington and Salt Lake City.
"At present, approximately 70 square miles (about 9% of the exposed lakebed) function as active dust hotspots. If protective crusts continue to degrade or groundwater levels decline further, dust-active areas could expand to as much as 187 square miles (approximately 24% of the lakebed)," the study said.
The study evaluated different methods to cover the exposed lakebed with varying costs and magnitude "ranging from approximately $3 million to $450 million per square mile over a 50-year period, depending on technology, lifespan, maintenance requirements, and water use. When scaled to the ~70 square miles of currently identified dust hotspots, total projected costs range from $3.2 billion to over $31 billion, depending on the mitigation strategy employed."
But even the most simple solution — getting more water into the Great Salt Lake — has costs, the study said.
"High-water-use methods may prove difficult to sustain given ongoing scarcity and competing ecological demands within the GSL system. Moreover, water usage values presented in Table 6 are derived from Owens Lake and require adjustment through site-specific hydrologic modeling for northern Utah conditions, reinforcing the need for localized pilot testing and adaptive management," the study said.
Read the study here:
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. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
