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Why the Shrinking Great Salt Lake Is a Public Health Crisis.Drought and overallocation of water lead to toxic dust that pollutes Salt Lake City communities. Sierra Club Helena Huizenga July 23, 2025  The first time I worried about the air my son was breathing was two years ago. The sky over Salt Lake City was hazy, and I remember wondering, ‘Is there a fire somewhere?’ There wasn’t. It was just a windy day, and dust was blowing from the exposed lakebed of the Great Salt Lake.  My parents moved to Salt Lake City five years ago. My partner and I followed two years later. We wanted to raise our son in a place where he’d grow up hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter.
 
But it turns out I need to be careful about being outside because dust from the shrinking lake has become a serious public health concern. That’s why on Saturday, April 26, my grandmother, my mom, and I walked up the steps of the Utah State Capitol to join an Earth Day rally for the Great Salt Lake. Three generations of us, standing shoulder to shoulder with others who had gathered for a disappearing body of water. Many of us held signs that bent in the very wind that was carrying dust and toxins into our lungs. We stood together, arms linked against the wind, with a united purpose: to advocate for policies that would protect the water levels of the Great Salt Lake and prevent more toxic dust from getting exposed.  Working together with scientists and the illustrator Clément Vuillier, they turned their ideas into a book in two segments – a children's picture book at the front and a collection of adult essays and interviews at the back. "Thanks to this dual narrative — one aimed at children, the other more critical and scientific for adults — The Down Under encourages reflection at different stages of life, with the ambition of functioning both as a children's book and as a transgenerational educational tool," said Trimarchi and Farresin. The Down Under story is accompanied by full-page illustrations by Vuillier that combine his signature complex style with influences drawn from scientific visuals. Trimarchi and Farresin asked him to develop the drawings based on high-powered microscope images of material samples sourced from a slag heap in Genk. There is a psychedelic, Alice in Wonderland quality to the drawings and narrative, as the main character falls through the earth, sees beyond his normally limited human perception and considers time from the perspective of a 400-million-year-old hive mind. The text represents a continuation of themes that Formafantasma has been exploring through works such as their Milan design week play, imagining animals reflecting on modernism, and their Oltre Terra exhibition examining the relationship between humans and sheep.                                                                             
 
From the podium, Courtney Henley, a physician and board member of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, painted a vivid picture of why the lake’s disappearance isn’t just an ecological disaster but a public health emergency too. “The medical urgency arises from the pervasive nature of the threat,” she said. “All living beings will inhale blowing lakebed dust, and every human resident in the path of blowing dust is impacted.” Unlike most air pollution, she explained, this is a regional issue because the dust disperses widely. “One large dust storm can impact millions of people.” A 2022 Brigham Young University study found high levels of toxic dust around the lake’s edge, posing serious risks to respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological health. As the lakebed dries, it exposes dirt, which gets picked up and spread by wind. “Most of the toxins are the result of centuries of industrial pollution that have deposited arsenic, mercury, and lead in the lake bottom,” Henley explained in a follow-up interview. These particles don’t just irritate the lungs; they dissolve into the bloodstream, potentially leading to heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, asthma, and even cancers. “Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable because of increased blood flow to growing tissues and the higher respiratory rates in children. Their rapidly dividing DNA is more susceptible to mutation caused by air pollution,” Henley said. “And elderly people are more at risk because they often have underlying diseases and weaker immune systems.”

 

The toxins are reaching people like Brandi O’Brian, who moved to Salt Lake City in 2021 after years of seasonal conservation work in Southern Utah. Drawn by the natural beauty and the sense of community she found, she never imagined that the air she was breathing would become a daily threat to her health. “At first, it was something I just saw,” she told me. “Then it was something I felt.”Her first asthma attack hit during a winter inversion, and it wasn’t subtle. “It was terrifying—a stark wake-up call that something was not right.” She’d never had asthma before moving here. Now, it’s part of her life. On dusty days, she experiences chest tightness, dizziness, and shortness of breath. “I’ve had to use my inhaler multiple times a day during these episodes,” she said. O’Brian has developed what she calls a ‘sixth sense’ for bad air. “Now, I can feel bad air quality in my lungs before I even check the report,” she said. “On those days, I avoid going outside, keep windows closed, run my air purifier, and skip exercise.” And still, despite every precaution, she can’t fully protect herself. “The dust has been awful,” she told me. “Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to describe how scary it is to feel like you can’t get a full breath.” read on

Despite growing awareness of the crisis, public response has lagged. Much of the water that once flowed to the Great Salt Lake is now siphoned off for agriculture and suburban developments. Meanwhile, Utah lawmakers have refused to implement reforms to ensure the lake remains at stable levels, initiate new programs to study water use, or allocate sufficient funding for water conservation plans. As a result, the lake continues to shrink, exposing more toxic dust and accelerating the public health crisis. If the Great Salt Lake continues on this path, the consequences could ripple throughout the West. It will impact air quality and public health beyond Utah’s borders. In other words, the anxiety that many Utahns feel on windy days could soon be felt across state lines. If the pace of water diversions continues, researchers from Brigham Young University estimate that the lake could disappear within the decade. “We’re stuck in a political holding pattern,” Henley said. “Water is being diverted. Reforms are slow. And people are getting sick.”..........and Climate Change and Global Heating will only make it even worse(editor)...... https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/why-shrinking-great-salt-lake-public-health-crisis?suppress=true&utm_source=greenlife&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

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As the World Warms, Extreme Rain Is Becoming Even More Extreme. Even in places, like Central Texas, with a long history of floods, human-caused warming is creating the conditions for more frequent and severe deluges. NY Times  Raymond Zhong Climate reporter July 5, 2025 Colossal bursts of rain like the ones that caused the deadly flooding in Texas are becoming more frequent and intense around the globe as the burning of fossil fuels heats the planet, scientists say. Warm air holds more moisture than cool air, and as temperatures rise, storms can produce bigger downpours. When met on the ground with outdated infrastructure or inadequate warning systems, the results can be catastrophic. These were the ingredients for tragedy in Texas, a state that is well acquainted with weather extremes of all kinds: high heat and deep cold, deluges and droughts, tornadoes and hurricanes, hail and snow. Indeed, the Hill Country, the part of the state where the Guadalupe River swelled on Friday, is sometimes called “flash flood alley” for how at risk it is to seemingly out-of-nowhere surges of water.Humid air blows into the area from two main sources, the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical Pacific Ocean. When this air collides with cool air drifting down across the Great Plains, severe storms can erupt. The hilly terrain and steep canyons quickly funnel the rain into river valleys, transforming lazy streams into roaring cascades. In parts of Texas that were flooded on Friday, the quantities of rain that poured down in a six-hour stretch were so great that they had less than a tenth of 1 percent chance of falling there in any given year, according to data analyzed by Russ Schumacher, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University.
 
The Guadalupe River rose from three feet to 34 feet in about 90 minutes, according to data from a river gauge near the town of Comfort, Texas. The volume of water exploded from 95 cubic feet per second to 166,000 cubic feet per second. And the warming climate is creating the conditions in Texas for more of these sharp, deadly deluges. In the eastern part of the state, the number of days per year with at least two inches of rain or snow has increased by 20 percent since 1900, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the United States. Across Texas, the intensity of extreme rain could increase another 10 percent by 2036, according to a report last year by John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist. To understand patterns of heavy rain at a more local level, communities and officials rely on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency has for decades published nationwide estimates of the probabilities of various precipitation events — that is, a certain number of inches falling in a particular location over a given amount of time, from five minutes to 24 hours to 60 days.    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/climate/texas-flood-climate-change.html

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 Driven by  Groundwater Depletion, Colorado River Basin   Lost Equivalent of Underground Lake Mead, "Everyone in the U.S. should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River Basin, and that's food that's usd all over the entire country." Common Dreams Julia ConleyMay 28, 2025 The authors of a new study on water loss in the Colorado River Basin say "large-scale industrial farming" is closely tied to a major depletion of groundwater in the Southwest, where the pumping of groundwater is largely unregulated. Researchers at Arizona State University used satellite data to measure groundwater supplies across the basin, which runs through seven states including Arizona, California, and Utah. Measuring the Earth's gravity field to estimate the mass of underground water in the region, they found that the area has lost 27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater since 2003—roughly the same volume as the capacity of the nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead.
 
The loss of groundwater has especially accelerated in the past decade, and the basin has lost more than twice as much groundwater since 2003 as the amount of water taken out of reservoirs. "Groundwater is disappearing 2.4 times faster than the surface water," Jay Famiglietti, the senior author of the study and a hydrologist at Arizona State University, told The Guardian. "Overpumping" is the main driver of groundwater loss in the past two decades, Famigletti said. "There's nothing illegal about it, it's just unprotected."The Colorado River provides water to about 40 million people and millions of acres of farmland.

"Everyone in the U.S. should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River Basin, and that's food that's used all over the entire country," Famigletti told The Guardian.While groundwater has been depleted, hotter temperatures fueled by the burning of fossil fuels have also contributed to especially arid conditions in the region over the past two decades. Since the beginning of the century the Colorado River's natural flow has been 13% lower than it was in the middle of the 20th century. "We need to recognize where all this is happening and work with the state to put the brakes on," Famigletti toldThe Washington Post. "We used to say the Colorado River is the lifeblood of the western United States, but now it's becoming groundwater is the lifeblood.States in the region were forced to reach a federal agreement in 2023 to limit water usage and try to protect the river's supply. The more water that is lost from the river, Famigletti toldthe Post, "the more pressure there's going to be on the groundwater" in the basin. "And then," he said, "it becomes a ticking time bomb."

Groundwater pumping is unregulated in much of the region, and the researchers noted that parts of the basin that have experienced the greatest losses are in areas with industrial alfalfa farming operations.     https://www.commondreams.org/news/colorado-river-water-level?utm_source=Common+D reams&utm_campaign=8622cb73b4-Top+News%3A+Wed.+5%2F28%2F25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-600564251

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Driven by  Groundwater Depletion, Colorado River Basin   Lost Equivalent of Underground Lake Mead, "Everyone in the U.S. should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River Basin, and that's food that's usd all over the entire country." Common Dreams Julia ConleyMay 28, 2025 The authors of a new study on water loss in the Colorado River Basin say "large-scale industrial farming" is closely tied to a major depletion of groundwater in the Southwest, where the pumping of groundwater is largely unregulated. Researchers at Arizona State University used satellite data to measure groundwater supplies across the basin, which runs through seven states including Arizona, California, and Utah. Measuring the Earth's gravity field to estimate the mass of underground water in the region, they found that the area has lost 27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater since 2003—roughly the same volume as the capacity of the nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead.

The loss of groundwater has especially accelerated in the past decade, and the basin has lost more than twice as much groundwater since 2003 as the amount of water taken out of reservoirs. "Groundwater is disappearing 2.4 times faster than the surface water," Jay Famiglietti, the senior author of the study and a hydrologist at Arizona State University, told The Guardian. "Overpumping" is the main driver of groundwater loss in the past two decades, Famigletti said. "There's nothing illegal about it, it's just unprotected."The Colorado River provides water to about 40 million people and millions of acres of farmland.

"Everyone in the U.S. should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River Basin, and that's food that's used all over the entire country," Famigletti told The Guardian.While groundwater has been depleted, hotter temperatures fueled by the burning of fossil fuels have also contributed to especially arid conditions in the region over the past two decades. Since the beginning of the century the Colorado River's natural flow has been 13% lower than it was in the middle of the 20th century.

"We need to recognize where all this is happening and work with the state to put the brakes on," Famigletti toldThe Washington Post. "We used to say the Colorado River is the lifeblood of the western United States, but now it's becoming groundwater is the lifeblood."States in the region were forced to reach a federal agreement in 2023 to limit water usage and try to protect the river's supply. The more water that is lost from the river, Famigletti told the Post, "the more pressure there's going to be on the groundwater" in the basin."And then," he said, "it becomes a ticking time bomb."

Groundwater pumping is unregulated in much of the region, and the researchers noted that parts of the basin that have experienced the greatest losses are in areas with industrial alfalfa farming operations......read on    https://www.commondreams.org/news/colorado-river-water-level?utm_source=Common+D reams&utm_campaign=8622cb73b4-Top+News%3A+Wed.+5%2F28%2F25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-600564251   

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28 big American cities are sinking, Subsidence threatens 34 million Americans–from Denver to DC. Popular Science Laura Baisas May 8, 2025 It’s not unknown that some major urban areas in the United States are sinking. And the problem could be even more widespread. A new analysis of the 28 most populated cities in the country found that all of them are sinking by roughly two to 10 millimeters (about 0.07 to 0.39 inches) per year. The major cause? Groundwater extraction as the demand for freshwater grows. The findings are detailed in a study published May 8 in the journal Nature Cities.

 
Small measurements, big impacts......While land sinking less than an inch per year might not seem like much on paper, small shifts in land can have big effects. Land shifts downward can impact the structural integrity of buildings, roads, bridges, and dams. A 2024 study found that regions of the Atlantic coast to be sinking by as much as five millimeters per year.This new study used satellite-based radar measurements to create high-res maps of subsidence–or sinking land– in these areas. They looked at the subsidence for the 28 most populated cities in the US–including New York, Dallas, and Seattle–which are home to 34 million people or roughly 12 percent of the US population.  “What makes this work especially powerful is the use of satellite radar (InSAR) to map subsidence in incredible detail,” study co-author and Virginia Tech geodesist/geophysicist Manoochehr Shirzaei tells Popular Science. “Think of it like getting a CAT scan of the Earth’s surface—except from space. This technology helps city planners and engineers pinpoint exactly where the ground is moving, which is essential for proactive maintenance, zoning, and flood risk planning.” In all of the cities studied, at least 20 percent of the urban area is sinking. In 25 out of the 28, at least 65 percent is sinking. New York, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Columbus, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston are sinking at roughly two millimeters per year. Additionally, several cities in Texas showed some of the highest measured rates of subsidence at about 5 millimeters per year. Certain parts of Houston are seeing as much as 10 millimeters per year, according to the study.  “A lot of small changes will build up over time, magnifying weak spots within urban systems and heightening flood risks,” Leonard Ohenhen, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, said in a statement. This evidence from Houston shows some differences in sinking rates between localized zones and areas right next door. This shows one of the more harmful and somewhat invisible effects of subsidence. With something like flood hazards, the risks are visible only when the land sinks below a specific threshold. However, inconsistent land motion–like what researchers observed in Houston–can crack and destabilize buildings, foundations, and infrastructure.
Signs of sinking......When the team assessed how infrastructure risks increase when subsidence rates vary, they found that New York, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC. also had high rates of variance. The slow nature also means that its infrastructure quality can be quietly compromised over time, according to Shirzaei. “Several telltale signs of land subsidence are visible to the naked eye and may indicate early stages of ground sinking or differential settlement,” he says. “In urban areas, these signs often appear gradually but can become serious if left unaddressed, especially in cities built on soft soils or where groundwater is heavily extracted.”Shirzaei says that some of these telltale signs include.....read on  https://www.popsci.com/environment/sinking-american-cities/?utm_term=pscene050925&utm_campaign=PopSci_Actives_Newsletter&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email      AND THERE'S MORE...... NYC is sinking and climate change is only making it worse

More Articles …

  1. A Lifeline for New York’s Threatened Wetlands
  2. More than Half of the World’s Lakes have Shrunk in Past 30 years, Study finds,
  3. Land and Climate Change: a Close Connection 
  4. Global Water Crisis leaves half of World Food Production at Risk in next 25 years

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