As a hot and dry summer threatens to kick up more dust from the Great Salt Lake, Utah has a plan to change how it tracks dust particles.
Utah’s Division of Air Quality will preliminarily install 19 new dust monitors to differentiate between dust from the Great Salt Lake and other sources, like the west desert. There will be both continuous monitors, which constantly collect data, and filter monitors, which capture particles and analyze them after a dust event.
Utah Department of Environmental Quality Executive Director Tim Davis said he tasked the Division of Air Quality with creating a “comprehensive” plan for monitoring dust coming off the lake. There is already an alert system where people can sign up to get warnings for unhealthy air quality, generally. The plan would be to integrate new data on dust into those existing systems.
“We already have the mechanisms to do that,” Davis said. “We just need to have the quantitative data related to dust to be able to feed into that system.”
The hope is that these new monitors will fill a data gap when it comes to dust and help officials determine different health risks based on what kind of dust is in the air.
There are about 800 square miles of exposed lakebed, but only four monitoring stations. That makes it difficult for researchers to know how much of an impact Great Salt Lake dust has on human health.
“We do have some data already on just those potential [dust] sources, but we need better data,” Davis said.
The new monitors are important because sometimes what people perceive as coming off the lakebed instead comes from the surrounding desert, said Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed.
“We need to make sure that we understand what's what,” he added.
The plan is in its early stages, but Davis said they are meeting with stakeholders to determine where the new dust monitors should be installed. The goal is to get them in place this year.
The Department of Environmental Quality will focus on placing monitors near impacted communities, Davis said. But they’re also considering placements on the west side of the lake and the Nevada border to get a better idea of the impacts of desert dust during dust storms.
“It's kind of a comprehensive look, but really one of the priorities is to make sure that we've got all of the potential affected communities covered,” Davis said.
The dust monitoring plan is expected to cost $1 million in one-time funding, according to Davis. Half of that money will come from the Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s Office, while the other half will need to be secured through other sources.
In his monthly news conference, Gov. Spencer Cox said the state has some monitors, but “we wanted more” to understand where the dust goes, how it shifts and where it could lead to the worst air quality.
“Getting that understanding will help us understand where to invest,” he said.
In a press release, Salt Lake City said residential water use has increased recently. Steed said those reports are “scary,” and conservation behaviors need to change in Utah.
“If we use water less on our lawns and gardens, it turns out we'll have more water for the lake,” Steed said. “That's just the way it is, and people have to remember that.”
