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Kate Meadows

Outdoors

A shrinking Great Salt Lake is exposing hundreds of square miles of lakebed to the wind, raising concerns among Utah scientists that dust carrying potentially harmful materials could spread into neighboring states, including southwestern Wyoming.

A map showing where the harmful dust could potentially impact people puts Evanston within reach.

But so far, Wyoming officials say there is no evidence yet that Great Salt Lake dust is affecting Wyoming's air quality.

That leaves an important question largely unanswered: How much of the harmful dust is reaching Wyoming, and what exactly is in it?

“We’re worried that the dust has started to become more frequent, more severe,” said atmospheric scientist Kevin Perry of the University of Utah.

Dust storms – such as one that kicked up from the Great Salt Lake on July 8 – cause spikes in airborne particulate matter, potentially leading to respiratory issues, especially among people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Perry said strong winds from the south and southwest can carry dust from the exposed lakebed north and east, sometimes reaching southwestern Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"“People should be aware of it,” he told Cowboy State Daily."}]

Donald Trump’s 2027 budget proposal includes a $1 billion request to fund a federal program that includes addressing the toxic dust and stabilizing the shrinking Great Salt Lake.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Exposed Lakebed"}]

The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for roughly four decades, exposing more than 800 square miles of lakebed, according to Perry.

Ben Abbott, an ecologist at the University of Utah, said the decline – more than half of the lake – is largely the result of water being diverted for communities and agriculture throughout the lake's watershed.

“We’ve been using more water than is sustainably available in the Great Salt Lake watershed,” Abbott said.

Abbott said the lake has been shrinking since the federal government built dams and allowed communities to consume more water.

“We started doing things like having lawns and growing commodity crops like alfalafa,” he said.

When strong winds move across the newly exposed lakebed, they pick up fine particles and carry them into surrounding communities.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That toxic soup becomes airborne,” Abbott said."}]

Researchers have found minerals and metals in the dust, including aluminum, iron, silicon, titanium and salt. Some studies have also raised concerns about metals that could pose health risks with prolonged exposure.

Abbott said larger particles generally do not travel as far, but smaller particles can remain airborne much longer and travel significant distances.

Evanston is roughly 70 miles from the eastern edge of the Great Salt Lake as the crow flies.

“You can imagine, you expose an area that big and a lot of unexpected things happen,” Abbott said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Differing Viewpoints"}]

Abbott said the lake's decline cannot be viewed solely as a Utah issue, because water usage in neighboring Wyoming and Idaho have contributed to the lake’s depletion.

The Bear River, which winds through Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, is the Great Salt Lake’s largest tributary, providing more than half of its water. All three states have water rights to the river.

Abbott estimated that roughly 80% of the lake's decline is attributable to upstream water use and said communities throughout the Bear River watershed, including those in Idaho and Wyoming, play a role.

“This is a national water policy and ag policy issue,” Abbott said. “We need to figure out how to change our relationship with water.”

But Perry puts more of the responsibility on Utah, saying that Utah uses its water rights the most and needs to cut its water consumption by 30%.

“I really view this as a Utah problem,” he said. “We use too much darn water.”

He added, however, that Utah's environmental problem does not necessarily stop at the state line.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We’re causing the problem, but it could impact you,” Perry said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Wyoming Knows"}]

For now, Wyoming's environmental regulators say they have not documented a problem.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality monitors air quality throughout the state for various pollutants.

Jillian Scott, a spokesperson for the DEQ, told Cowboy State Daily the agency is aware of Utah research showing dust from the exposed Great Salt Lake lakebed can contain elevated levels of certain metals.

But Wyoming is not specifically monitoring Great Salt Lake dust as an air-quality issue.

“At this time we have not observed information indicating impacts in Wyoming related to Great Salt Lake dust,” she shared in an email. “We do not currently have data that would allow us to characterize or confirm those claims for Wyoming.”

Instead, the most common air-quality issues in Wyoming are particulate matter from construction, unpaved roads and industrial activity and wildfire smoke. The agency also monitors winter ozone in the Upper Green River Basin.

Routine air-quality monitoring alone would not establish whether toxic elements came specifically from the Great Salt Lake.

“It’s very hard to source (where a pollutant comes from) unless it’s in the general vicinity,” Scott said.

Scott said confirming such a connection would require collecting air filters during a dust event, analyzing them for trace metals and comparing Wyoming samples with known Great Salt Lake dust profiles. Atmospheric modeling also could help determine whether the particles originated at the lakebed.

That type of specialized analysis is not part of Wyoming's standard monitoring program, she added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming Residents Unaware"}]

In Uinta County, where Evanston sits within range of dust transported from the Great Salt Lake, the issue has generated little apparent concern.

Kathy Payne, who works at Rocky Mountain Care, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Evanston, said she had not heard about the issue.

Kerri Sabey, district manager with the Uinta County Conservation District, also said she was unaware of research indicating Great Salt Lake dust was affecting the county.

Adrian Hunolt, who ranches in southwestern Wyoming about 90 miles from the shrinking lake's shores, lives along the Bear River.

Hunolt said dust storms are not unusual in the region, although he could not say how much of that dust comes from the Great Salt Lake.

“When the wind blows down there we definitely get dust storms up here, and it covers us in dust,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “How much of it comes off the west desert down there and how much of it comes off the Great Salt Lake dry lakebed, I don’t know.”

Hunolt said he sees dust on his property several times a year. Weather conditions sometimes leave a layer of white dust across the area.

Abbott said he is not aware of research from Wyoming or Idaho examining whether Great Salt Lake dust is affecting water, crops or soils in those states.

[{"type":"text","text":"Repeated calls to Uinta County Public Health were not returned."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Measuring the Dust"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Utah is beginning to gather more information."}]

The state has been establishing a network of dust monitors designed to measure airborne particles and determine what metals and minerals they contain – and how much.

Some of the monitors are already operating, Perry said, with the network expected to be completed by early spring 2027.

The additional data could help researchers determine not only how frequently dust is being generated, but also how far it travels and what contaminants it carries.

[{"type":"text","text":"Abbott said the first step is recognizing the scale of the problem."}]

“I think people are starting to wake up to the potential loss of the lake,” he said.

He also cautioned that restoring a shrinking inland lake becomes increasingly difficult as water levels fall and exposed lakebed expands.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Warning From Lake Aral"}]

Abbott points to the history of the Aral Sea in Central Asia as a warning of what can happen when a large inland lake is allowed to shrink dramatically.

Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral Sea began disappearing after the then Soviet Union diverted massive amounts of water from its tributary rivers for agriculture.

As the lake receded, large expanses of contaminated lakebed were exposed. Dust from the former lakebed was carried by the wind into surrounding communities and agricultural areas.

As the lake declined, Abbott said, cancer rates increased by 60%, and cardiovascular diseases spiked.

Abbott said the resulting environmental and public health problems illustrate the risks that can accompany the collapse of an inland water body.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Big Open Question’"}]

For Perry, the solution remains relatively straightforward: Put more water back into the Great Salt Lake by reducing human consumption.

[{"type":"text","text":"For Wyoming, however, another question remains."}]

Until the dust is specifically measured during storms in southwestern Wyoming, it may be impossible to know whether the particles settling on Wyoming soil and blowing through Wyoming communities are coming from the Great Salt Lake, nearby drylands or somewhere else entirely.

“This is a big open question,” Abbott said. “Can we do something new? Can we blaze a path to wise stewardship of the environment rather than ignorance and depletion?”

Abbott said the contaminated dust caused by the shrinking of the lake could be one of the biggest public health crises to impact the state.

[{"type":"text","text":"“A lot depends on getting this right,” he said."}]

Great salt lake combo 8 14 26

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Could 'Toxic Soup' From Great Salt Lake Lakebed Dust Impact Southwest Wyoming? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Researchers warn that a "toxic soup" of dust from a shrinking Great Salt Lake could be reaching Wyoming, which is not specifically monitoring lake particles. “We’re causing the problem, but it could impact you,” a University of Utah scientist says.

Could 'Toxic Soup' From Great Salt Lake Lakebed Dust Impact Southwest Wyoming?

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Business & Tourism

Business

Sam Husted and Sam Rollins have spent five years working together at the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Rally, where they are known simply as "The Sams."

[{"type":"text","text":"They come from Wyoming for 14 days and work the entire 10 days."}]

The night YUNGBLUD played the Buffalo Chip, the line in front of them seemed like it would never end.

Drinks flew across the bar as quickly as Husted and Rollins could make them, and after a few days they were out of body glitter.

Beneath the Engine Bar, bikers gathered under an enormous canopy while motorcycles rumbled in and out, making it difficult to hear.

[{"type":"text","text":"For the Sams, all that noise meant business."}]

On a good night, Husted said, the goal was to walk away with $1,500 or more.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's exhausting, but so much fun,\" Husted said."}]

They bought a camper, friends came along and the two-week money-making marathon doubled as a strange sort of working vacation.

For the Sams, that's part of what makes the arrangement work. They can make in a night what might otherwise take days or weeks, then step outside into one of the biggest parties in the world.

"It's a good time. It goes by quickly," Rollins said. "And then you have a lot of money to show for it."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Money Grows Everywhere"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"For most of the year, Sturgis is impossibly wholesome. Charming, even."}]

The little South Dakota town is tucked against the Black Hills, where old houses sit behind tidy yards and white picket fences, hollyhocks grow along the sidewalks and church steeples poke above old trees.

[{"type":"text","text":"In the dead of winter, it's a quiet place."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then August comes."}]

Trucks and trailers begin appearing in driveways. Hand-painted parking signs sprout in front yards. Tents and temporary bars go up. Main Street disappears beneath motorcycles parked wheel to wheel, and the low rumble of engines becomes the background noise of daily life.

[{"type":"text","text":"While the bikers come to play, an army goes to work."}]

For 10 days, bartenders like Husted and Rollins sling drinks until their arms ache. Hotel owners turn rooms as fast as people can leave them. Shuttle drivers prowl the darkness looking for fares.

[{"type":"text","text":"August in Sturgis is harvest season."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And there is money growing everywhere."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Make Hay"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Sheraz Shah couldn't have picked a wilder week to become an innkeeper."}]

On Aug. 3, with the rally already in full swing, he officially took over the Sturgis Lodge and Suites.

[{"type":"text","text":"Almost immediately, he discovered he had a problem."}]

The motel appeared to be booked, but many of the reservations left behind by the previous management weren't valid, Shah said. Some lacked working phone numbers or credit cards, leaving rooms that had effectively been held for months without paying customers attached to them.

With one of the most lucrative weeks of the year already bearing down on him, Shah began canceling questionable reservations, dropping prices and trying to fill rooms.

The reservation mess left the new owner in an unusual position during a week when rooms around Sturgis can be hard to come by: He suddenly had vacancies to fill.

[{"type":"text","text":"So he got to work."}]

Shah was putting in days that started around 5 or 6 in the morning and stretched as late as 1 a.m., answering phones, fixing keys, checking in guests and trying to survive.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"God is helping me different ways,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One thing Shah wasn't having trouble with was the bikers."}]

Movies tend to portray them as gangsters and troublemakers, he said, but the people actually sleeping in his rooms had been "very nice, very polite, very beautiful people."

[{"type":"text","text":"He said he hadn't had a bad interaction with a single guest."}]

For Shah, the madness is welcome because the economics of running a hotel in the Black Hills are brutally seasonal.

[{"type":"text","text":"Winter is \"almost dead.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We completely rely on summertime business to survive.\""}]

Despite the scramble behind the scenes, the rooms are clean, the pool is inviting and hot breakfast in the mornings comes with good, strong coffee.

[{"type":"text","text":"In Sturgis, you make hay while the Harleys roar."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Follow The Bikes"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Nearby, another little economy unfolds."}]

Women in bikinis polish motorcycles for tips while their customers lounge beneath the shade, watching chrome become even shinier.

Some of the women say they spend much of the summer following the motorcycle circuit from rally to rally.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sturgis is only one stop."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There is Daytona. Laconia. Four Corners. The Ozarks."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Where the motorcycles go, the workers follow."}]

There is an entire wandering economy chasing the bikes: bartenders, vendors, gate workers, security crews and more.

[{"type":"text","text":"Sturgis is its Super Bowl."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Viking Shuttle"}]

Sometime around midnight, Baron von Strauss is doing some of his best business.

 and describes himself as the son of a Norwegian soybean farmer from North Dakota.

He has lived in South Dakota for about 10 years, drawn by the beauty, the freedom and family scattered throughout the Dakotas.

About four years ago, his best friend, a former mayor of Sturgis, needed help driving dignitaries around during the rally. Strauss agreed and began handing his phone number out to passengers.

[{"type":"text","text":"They gave the number to other people, who gave it to more people."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"My phone started ringing,\" Strauss said, \"and it never stopped.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, he calls the business \"a cash cow all year long.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"During the rally, however, the real money starts moving after dark."}]

Strauss stays busy during the day, but his most lucrative hours run from about 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., when concerts let out, bars are roaring and thousands of people who have spent the night drinking and partying suddenly need someone else to get them where they're going.

He sees Sturgis changing, too. The old bikers are aging out, he said, while younger generations are beginning to take their place. He believes the rally could grow substantially in the coming years, and he points to his own business as evidence: Every year he drives the rally, Viking Shuttle grows.

[{"type":"text","text":"More bikers mean more fares."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And more money."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Hangover"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, the rally leaves."}]

The concerts stop, bartenders pack up and the women polishing motorcycles move on. Temporary campgrounds empty, vendors disappear and the procession of motorcycles begins to thin until the constant roar that has hung over Sturgis for weeks fades away.

The Sams head home to Wyoming. Sheraz Shah is left with a motel to carry through the slow season.

[{"type":"text","text":"Strauss gets his town back."}]

For a couple of weeks afterward, he said, Sturgis itself seems to be recovering.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We're a little hungover,\" he said. "}]

By mid-September, the town settles back into its other personality. Locals reclaim Main Street and life contracts to its ordinary small-town dimensions — school, church, coffee, book clubs, and football games.

The hills grow quiet enough for hiking and snowshoeing, while some of the enormous bars and storefronts built to accommodate hordes of visitors simply shutter until summertime.

Sam and sam 8 14 26

<title>Moneymaker: Casper Bartenders Work Sturgis Every Year And Can Make $1,500 Per Night | Cowboy State Daily</title>

This is the fifth year Sam Husted and Sam Rollins have gone to Sturgis to work at The Buffalo Chip. The Casper bartenders are known as 'The Sams' and they can make $1,500 per night. August is harvest season. And money is growing everywhere.

Moneymaker: Casper Bartenders Work Sturgis Every Year And Can Make $1,500 Per Night

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Three Wyoming gubernatorial candidates for the Republican nomination took the debate stage Thursday, for the last time before the primary election. Eric Barlow focused on his experience, Megan Degenfelder on her vision and Brent Bien on righting the government's structure.