How Great Salt Lake dust impacts Latinos and Pacific Islanders

Airborne dust from the dwindling Great Salt Lake is disproportionately impacting Latino and Pacific Islander communities, per a recent study .

Why it matters: Communities of color have historically faced the brunt of environmental hazards and human-caused climate change.

Context: That's been especially true in the Salt Lake metro area where many of Utah's most racially diverse residents live.

• The EPA in 2022 launched an environmental justice assessment into the challenges facing Salt Lake City's west side neighborhoods.
• The assessment found West Siders have long encountered poor air quality due to their proximity to highways, the airport and refineries, confirming what residents have known and lived with for decades.

The big picture: White people are less likely to be exposed to particulate pollution from the approximate 800 square miles of exposed lake bed than Latinos and Pacific Islanders, per the study published in the sustainability journal One Earth last month.

• Racially diverse and low-income neighborhoods on the west side of Salt Lake City encounter a greater chance for exposure because they are located in the direction where the wind blows Great Salt Lake dust.
• Researchers created a model to measure PM2.5 levels in Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties under four scenarios based on varying lake levels, ranging from a completely dry lake bed to a "healthy" water level of 4,200 feet above sea level.
• It found that when lake levels dropped, dust exposure would increase, disproportionately affecting people of color and people without high school diplomas.

Zoom in: "While all Wasatch Front residents face potentially unhealthy levels of dust exposure, our estimates reveal clear exposure disparities based on race/ethnicity," per the study.

Threat level: Breathing in unhealthy PM2.5 levels can increase a person's risk of heart disease, asthma, and low birth weight among pregnant people.

What they're saying: "There is a really strong pattern of inequality with respect to race and ethnicity," the report's lead author Sara Grineski, a sociology and environmental studies professor at the University of Utah, said in a statement.

• "It's sort of a hopeful finding that if we can raise the lake to a 'healthy' level we can at least — with respect to lake dust — we can reduce some of that inequality."

This article originates from the Great Salt Lake Collaborative , a solutions journalism initiative designed to inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake.