Salt Lake City, UT— Sept. 23, 2025 —As Great Salt Lake continues to decline, toxic dust from its exposed lakebed poses rising health risks and mounting economic costs. Pollutants like arsenic and heavy metals are tied to higher illness rates, lost work and school days, and billions in potential damages.
To explore the stakes and solutions, local nonprofit Grow the Flow is hosting a Great Salt Lake community webinar, The Price of Dust: Health and Economic Impacts of a Dying Great Salt Lake, on Zoom.
The evening will feature a live Q&A with two of Utah’s Great Salt Lake experts: Dr. Ben Abbott, a Brigham Young University ecologist and executive director of Grow the Flow, and Dr. Alberto Garcia, an environmental economist at the University of Utah, whose research focuses on the health impacts and associated economic costs of dust emissions.
“Dust from exposed lakebed of the Great Salt Lake generates substantial health and well-being impacts ranging from increased school absences to premature death,” said Dr. Garcia. “Under a scenario where the lake continues to decline, we project that the costs of these impacts would exceed $1 billion over the next 20 years.”
Lessons from other terminal lakes, like the Aral Sea or Owens Lake, offer a warning sign of how ecological collapse can devastate both economies and communities. Toxic dust storms fueled widespread respiratory illness, rising cancer rates, and forced outmigration—alongside billions in economic losses. Utah faces similar risks, but experts stress there is still a vital window of time to change course.
“We have a chance to do something that no other region has done before: save our saline lake before it’s too late,” Dr. Abbott said. “We have the scientific knowledge, the values, and the resources to do this.”
This event is part of Grow the Flow’s community forum series, which will take place in various locations across the Great Salt Lake Basin this fall.
Join us here.
