Important Takeaways:

• More than 200k on red alert as toxic dust from Great Salt Lake to make area uninhabitable
• Salt Lake City’s 200,000 strong population faces an environmental crisis, as water levels in the Great Salt Lake recede.
• Experts have told Daily Express US about the looming disaster, as the falling water levels could release toxic dust.
• Laura Briefer, director of Salt Lake City’s public utilities department, said: “As the lake dries up, the lake bed itself dries, and contributes to air quality problems as the dust becomes airborne.
• “The lake bed contains high level of arsenic that, in addition to the dust, causes health concerns.”
• The growing situation has led to a group of experts and scientists declaring an emergency in a report (GSL report 2023), warning that the once-largest lake in the West could vanish in just five years.
• “Examples from around the world show that saline lake loss triggers a long-term cycle of environmental, health, and economic suffering,” they wrote
• “We are in an all-hands-on-deck emergency.”
• “But this means addressing the problem through policy and water law, which takes time and is messy. In the western US, water allocations are governed by 19th Century homesteading policies.
• “It’s challenging to get people to give up their right to water for irrigating their family farm, for example.
• “The state of Utah is working on incentives to help farmers cope in hopes this will encourage them to release water.”

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