How toxic is the Great Salt Lake?

The terror comes from toxins laced in the vast exposed lake bed, such as arsenic, mercury and lead, being picked up by the wind to form poisonous clouds of dust that would swamp the lungs of people in nearby Salt Lake City, where air pollution is often already worse than that of Los Angeles, potentially provoking a ...



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Swimming in the Great Salt Lake is safe despite contaminants, researchers say - Axios Salt Lake City.

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In 2022, its surface sank to a record low, 10 feet below what is considered a minimum healthy level. With less freshwater flowing in, the lake has grown so salty that it's becoming toxic even to the native brine shrimp and flies that evolved to live there, Abbott said.

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The Great Salt Lake contains arsenic and other metals that are naturally occurring, while some researchers say could even be human-caused. And as the lake shrinks, it has exposed some 800 square miles of exposed lakebed, equivalent to the entire surface area of Maui.

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Lake Karachay, a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in western Russia, is thought to be the most polluted spot on Earth. Starting in 1951, the Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, a nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility located near the town of Ozyorsk.

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The saltiest of the Great Salt Lake's water sits on the bottom of the lake. The heavy brine traps organic material (i.e., algae and plant and animal remains) and gases at the bottom of the lake.

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Water experts say it's going to take more than one big year to fill the Great Salt Lake. SALT LAKE CITY — Ever since The Great Salt Lake hit its lowest water level on record in November 2022, concerns over things like arsenic in the exposed lake bed have only grown.

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With a salinity level over 40 percent, Don Juan is significantly saltier than most of the other hypersaline lakes around the world. The Dead Sea has a salinity of 34 percent; the Great Salt Lake varies between 5 and 27 percent. Earth's oceans have an average salinity of 3.5 percent.

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According to a recent study by Brigham Young University, it's possible that Great Salt Lake could dry up completely in the next five years.

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New analysis says Great Salt Lake can be saved, but not without great effort, and expense.

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However, the most deleterious effect of the Great Salt Lake drying up is that the air surrounding Salt Lake City could sporadically become poisonous. Since the bed of the Great Salt Lake holds high levels of dangerous particles like arsenic, antimony, copper, zirconium, and various heavy metals.

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The Great Salt Lake is home to many important biological and wildlife species, from archaea, to bacteria, to phytoplankton (400+ species). Perhaps the three most apparent species that can be seen with the naked eye are brine shrimp (tons), brine flies (billions) and birds (millions).

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The state of Utah owns basically most of the Great Salt Lake, including Antelope Island, Fremont Island, Gunnison Island, the Ogden and Farmington bay wetland areas, along with the entire lakebed.

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So just how bad is it, really? A new scientific report warns the lake is on track to disappear in the next five years, unless water use is cut by as much as 50% annually.

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A recent report found that the lake could essentially disappear within five years. As a key stopover for migrating birds, the lake's loss could undermine whole ecosystems.

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The shallow bottom of Great Salt Lake supports a microbial carpet that harness the sun's energy through the process of photosynthesis. This carpet is made up of a community of microbes, including several types of cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae), algae and other organisms.

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Compass Minerals announced in 2021 it was seeking to extract lithium from the Great Salt Lake under a pilot program. The company, which has a plant in Ogden, said it was utilizing new methods of extracting the precious resource within the ambient brine of the Great Salt Lake.

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