Kentucky bluegrass adds a touch of green to the dusty Northern Utah landscape, an area with little summer rainfall. Yet despite the paucity of water from the sky, the residents of Utah use more water per person than almost anywhere else in the country — and only a quarter of that water ever makes it inside.
Two decades into a megadrought, water irrigation keeps manicured lawns and fields alive in the middle of the desert. Yet dust storms have become a growing problem for human health and the health of ecosystems. Only a briny crust and sparse plants may soon remain of the Great Salt Lake. Indeed, as water levels drop in the shallow terminal basin, heavy metals and toxins accumulate in their place in the ancient lakebed. Now, experts fear that the drying lake's accumulated dust — some of it toxic — could blow across the region, potentially entering the bodies of the people living there in the process.
