Nearly 400 members of the medical community in Utah and across the U.S. delivered a letter to policymakers urging them to save the declining Great Salt Lake.
Dr. Brian Moenche is the president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, one of five different groups that are plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging the state of Utah is failing to protect Great Salt Lake. He spoke about the sign-on letter drafted by this group.
“It is a manifestation of the recognition by the medical community, of the overall health threat that a diminished Great Salt Lake represents to a majority of the population in the state of Utah,” said Moenche.
Environmental scientists have concluded the lake is on the path of ecological collapse. As more water is depleted, lakebed sediments containing toxic pollutants are exposed and carried by the wind as dust, which poses air quality and human health risks for the intermountain region.
“Dust particles should not be viewed as any more of a benign form of air pollution than any other type of air pollution. But then when you add in the increased toxicity of the heavy metals — the bottom line is, it's a significant source of air pollution and a significant health hazard affecting, at minimum, at least 2 million people,” Moenche said.
Moenche explained how air pollution can lead to diseases in almost every critical organ system —, asthma, heart disease, strokes, cancers, even neurological diseases like Alzheimers.
“So much of the common thread between these various diseases involves inflammation of the blood vessels, you can think of air pollution as a blood vessel disease," Moench said. "So we want people to understand that the list of adverse health outcomes is an extremely long list, everyone is likely to be affected, and we really need to do something about it."
The letter urges the state to “implement whatever policies are necessary and declares that maintaining the lake’s surface area is essential to protecting the health of Utah residents.”
