One of Utah’s premier academic institutions issued an emergency warning on January 4th, 2023. Airborne arsenic, lead, antimony, and other highly hazardous toxins are gradually beginning to poison Utah residents. The situation will only worsen without drastic interventions.
Download our Utah Public Health Crisis Fact Sheet here to learn more about the current status of Utah’s air quality health crisis.
We are already suffering immensely, and could be as little as 5 years away from being bombarded by multiple toxic dust storms every year. Learn more below.
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So where is this toxic dust coming from? Surprisingly, from the newly-exposed lakebed of the Great Salt Lake. Over the many decades of mining in Northern Utah, runoff water has carried many dangerous chemicals to rest below the lake. As it dries up, we breath in more and more poison.
We need your help!
Now is the time to act! The future is not inevitable. Fortunately, we hold the power to change it in our very own hands. Sadly, it seems that many of our legislators are hesitant to take definitive action to get water to the lake. It’s up to us to help them understand how dire the situation truly is. Incredibly helpful and easy ways to get involved are listed below. In fact, the first two take less than 5 minutes!
2- Find and email your legislators
3- Save over 17,000 gallons of water per person, per year with 3 simple tips
4- Talk to your legislators in person by learning to lobby with HEAL Utah
Additionally, you can view summaries of, and links to, the peer-reviewed, published research here. Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, and more have indeed published some landmark studies in recent years. Undeniably, the impressive work from these institutions clearly shows that we are heading for disaster if we don’t change course right away.
Why we need you
Legislators are failing to take definitive action on getting water to the lake, despite the urgency of the situation and the many viable solutions being presented.
Disappointingly, a group of senators voted 4-2 against even setting a goal for minimum lake elevation. The justification? One senator can “see the lake” every day; he says it “looks fine” and we “shouldn’t be pointing fingers.” Notably, a water level at 4,198 ft is the low-end estimate for what experts believe will prevent harmful dust storms and ecological collapse.
Expand this section to learn about some of the other pieces of legislation proposed this session.
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- Surprisingly, a Senate committee refuses to recommend House Bill 217, which would grant schools the funds to renovate their water and energy systems accordingly. Many senators want the schools to have to pay the state back for the repairs, so the bill was reduced to only allocate a small amount of federal funds that were already available.
- Fortunately, there is newly passed legislation against US Magnesium’s unchecked bromide emissions. House Bill 220 overall seeks to require this facility to reduce emissions, which our lawmakers have the authority to do. Incredibly, 10-25% of all of the winter inversion we suffer through each year is now known to billow out this company’s single smoke stack. It is important to note that even just one molecule of bromine can significantly damage several hundred ozone molecules and lead to more PM2.5 pollution.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING!
