{"id":68441,"date":"2023-09-19T11:41:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T15:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=68441"},"modified":"2024-07-19T10:21:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T14:21:54","slug":"as-great-salt-lake-dries-dust-is-new-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/as-great-salt-lake-dries-dust-is-new-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"As Great Salt Lake Dries, Dust Is New Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Climate change, population growth, water diversions — all those are acting together to cause a big decline in the level of the Salt Lake,” says Kerry Kelly<\/a>, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Utah. “And that’s leading to big air quality problems here.” In this video, she talks about how the dust left behind by the drying lake now kicks up on a regular basis, irritating eyes, noses and mouths, and making it tougher for people to breathe, especially those with asthma or other respiratory conditions. One recommendation that Kelly made to keep the air cleaner — restrictions on wood-burning fireplaces — was met with severe backlash. Kelly is now the co-founder of Tellus Networked Air Quality Sensors<\/a>, which is developing a low-cost air quality sensor to measure air pollution from the drying lake. The dust contains arsenic, lead and mercury, among other toxins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly is a recipient of The Story Exchange’s 2022 Women In Science Incentive Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*This video is a 2023 winner of SABEW’s Best in Business<\/a> awards: \u201cThe Story Exchange laid out the story in less than eight minutes in a clear, succinct and engaging way… a splendid job of reporting and explaining an important and interesting story.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n Monitoring the Risks of Salt Lake Valley’s Dust\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n
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\r\n\t\tRead Full Transcript<\/i><\/span><\/a>\r\n\t\t
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PIX:\tLake scenery. \t <\/p>\n

L\/T:\tSalt Lake City, Utah<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tAugust of 2021, we had the worst air quality of any urban area in the world. Winds kicked up and drove a lot of dust across the I-15 interstate. There was a big pile up and eight people died.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tCrash, interstate footage.<\/p>\n

TITLE:\tFrom Water to Dust<\/p>\n

L\/T:\tKerry Kelly - Chemical Engineering Department - University of Utah<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tClimate change, population growth, water diversions. All those are acting together to cause a big decline in the level of the Salt Lake, and that's leading to big air quality problems here.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry walking along lake.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tClimate change, it's not some distant thing that you can't see or experience. It's pretty obvious that it's happening. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tSalt Lake City.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tThere are about over two million people that live here. I think a lot of folks don't realize, the lake, it's important to our whole ecosystem and our economy and our livelihood.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tFor decades, industries like alfalfa farming, shrimping and mining have relied heavily on the lake.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tOld footage of lush lake. Kerry and Kevin meeting, hiking at current lake. Google map of shrinking lake.<\/p>\n

Kevin:\tWe're six feet below what would be the minimum, you know, sustainable good range for the lake. So the eastern half of the lake is basically gone. <\/p>\n

L\/T:\tKevin Perry - Atmospheric Sciences Department - University of Utah<\/p>\n

Kevin:\tWe have a meteorological tower to measure the winds out on the lake bed to find out how strong they are. I'm trying to understand how the dust gets lofted off of the surface. And Kerry is trying to track it and figure out where it's going and how it's going to be impacting people.<\/p>\n

Kerry: \tWhen I first moved here to Salt Lake in 2000, the mudflats, or sand flats, were not visible.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry on campus, in car, working with partner in lab.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tKerry earned her Ph. D. in environmental engineering with a focus on air quality at the University of Utah. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tHer work led to an unexpected discovery.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIn 2013, Kerry published the findings of her research.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tFoggy air, burning wood, cabins.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tWe discovered that wood burning was a significantly larger contributor to poor air quality than was originally thought. The good thing is, it's something you could do something about. If you could get people to not burn wood during poor air quality periods, then that could actually move the needle a little bit. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tAt the time, Kerry was serving on the State Air Quality Board.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tHer findings led the Board to draw up proposals to limit wood burning. <\/p>\n

Kerry:\tThe Air Quality Board had seven hearings that were packed with something between 200 to 500 people, standing room only. People were furious. <\/p>\n

Kerry:\tI did chair, I think, two of the meetings with the angry crowds. The members of the Air Quality Board were getting thousands of messages and phone calls. When I got the phone call from the person who said, \"I'm watching you. I got my eye on you,\" I was a little bit\u2026 You start to get the hairs on the back of your neck. It was pretty intimidating.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tPutting out fire.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIn 2013, despite the controversy, the state began restricting wood burning on some winter days. <\/p>\n

Kerry:\tFast forward, five years later, we went back and looked at the filters again and saw what had happened over time. The contributions from wood burning have declined dramatically, so from something like 10% down to like 2% or 3%. We've made great strides. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry winning award, walking by dry lake to set up a sensor.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tIn 2018, the governor of Utah named Kerry Clean Air Person of the Year.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tIn 2018, I became interested in low cost air quality sensors. The sensors we were using, and in fact, the sensors that almost everyone is using to look at particle pollution, do a really crappy job at dust. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tBack at college with Pierre.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tKerry and a colleague started building more sensitive, low-cost sensors to measure air pollution from the drying lake.<\/p>\n

L\/T:\tPierre-Emmanuel Gaillardon \u2013 Electrical and Computer Engineering Department - University of Utah<\/p>\n

Pierre:\tI know how to acquire data. I know how to store data. I know how to clean data. I don't know if the data makes sense. That's where Kerry: comes in. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tDry, cracked mud.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tThe team found the lake\u2019s dust contained elevated levels of toxins.
\nTEXT:\tArsenic. Lead. Mercury.
\nTEXT:\tAll are known to cause major health problems.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry showing us the sensor on the beach.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tThis sensor is a little bit larger, it\u2019s more powerful, and it is set up in a way that will allow you to measure dust in the Great Salt Lake. It will transmit the readings to an offline database in the Cloud. It does that every two minutes. It also has a GPS so that you know where the sensor is. Also gives us time. A time stamp is really important for all the measurements. <\/p>\n

PIX:\tWith Pierre at lab in University.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tA colleague approached us who was in pediatrics, and he said, \u201cOh, I've got some funds. We would love to put your sensors in the homes of 200 asthmatic and could you make me them?\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, let's figure out how to do this.\u201d Pierre and I were like, on Saturday afternoon, assembling sensors and packaging them and sending them out, and that was clearly not scalable.<\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry building a sensor.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tKerry and Pierre set up a company, Tellus Networked Sensor Solutions. <\/p>\n

TEXT:\tSchools, day care centers, and people with asthma rely on their sensors to protect their health.<\/p>\n

Kerry: \tNow that the cost and the quality of air quality sensing have come down to a reasonable level that it's accessible to the community, I think there are a lot of great opportunities to take better control of your health. For example, if you\u2019ve got a football team and you live in Nephi, Utah, and you're coming up to Salt Lake to play a game, should you move the game to Nephi because of the air quality? <\/p>\n

PIX:\tKerry and Kevin walking by the lake.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tA day like today, it's stunning. It's green.<\/p>\n

Kevin: \tIt's just in a magical place to be. The thought that this oasis in the desert is about to be lost forever is just something that really pains me on a personal level.<\/p>\n

TEXT:\tExperts estimate the lake could disappear entirely within 5 years.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tThere is enough conservation that could be done that could fix this, could bring this back to a healthy level.<\/p>\n

Kevin\tWe can alter how we use water and we can recover, but it's not going to happen in a year or two, or even a decade. It's going to take several decades in order to fully recover the lake.<\/p>\n

Kerry:\tWe all need to do something. Individuals need to do things, but we need important actors, whoever they are, corporations, religious organizations, whoever, to make big, bold steps that are going to help us get at this problem. We do need big, bold steps.<\/p>\n<\/p>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Utah, Kerry Kelly is developing low-cost sensors to monitor air quality. Dust from the now-exposed lakebed can contain arsenic, lead and mercury. Watch our award-winning video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":71125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21509,19483,20279,19731],"class_list":["post-68441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneur-videos","tag-air-quality-monitoring","tag-eco-friendly","tag-environmental-science","tag-women-entrepreneurs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAs Great Salt Lake Dries, Dust Is New Danger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Utah, Kerry Kelly is developing low-cost sensors to monitor air quality. 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