Alpine City closes out its 2026 Water Education Open House series Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 6 p.m. in Alpine Elementary School, 400 East 300 North. BYU Associate Professor Ben Abbott, a plant and wildlife sciences researcher who also leads the nonprofit Grow the Flow, will speak on "How We Impact the Health of the Great Salt Lake."

The timing is sharp. One day earlier, University of Utah researchers and the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy released a report putting hard numbers on what that shrinking lake costs Utahns.

The report, titled "Options and Costs for Great Salt Lake Dust Control," was commissioned by the Utah Division of Water Resources as input for the Great Salt Lake Basin Integrated Plan. At the lake's current elevation of 4,192 feet, dust blowing off exposed lakebed is linked to an estimated $115.79 million in annual health costs, roughly 6.24 premature deaths, 17,052 work-loss days and nearly 17,748 school absences each year, ABC4 reported.

More than 800 square miles of lakebed have been exposed to wind erosion. About 70 square miles are active dust hotspots, and that area could expand to 187 square miles if protective surface crusts keep degrading or groundwater levels drop.

If the lake fell to 4,183 feet, annual health costs would climb to $133.67 million. Raising it to the minimum healthy elevation of 4,198 feet would cut costs to $73.39 million. Through 2060, cumulative health costs would reach $5.79 billion under current conditions, compared with $3.71 billion at the minimum healthy elevation.

Engineered dust controls across the 70 square miles of hotspots would cost between $3.2 billion and $31 billion, according to Phys.org. Those costs could rise roughly 2.7 times if hotspots expand. The report concludes that stabilizing lake levels and targeted engineered controls should work together, not as alternatives.

Lead author Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric sciences professor, told ABC4 the state should use better data to identify the highest-risk areas and reserve engineered controls for places where evidence shows they are necessary. Laura Vernon, the Great Salt Lake Basin planner for the Division of Water Resources, said in the same report that the findings "will shape long-term water management recommendations" and that "delivering water to the lake is the single most cost-effective way to suppress dust."

Abbott has been vocal about the economic case for saving the lake. On Sept. 3, he told Fox 13 that a separate Texas A&M-led study on dust health costs showed restoration is "an investment that saves us a lot of money."

Wednesday's open house is the last in a monthly series Alpine City has hosted since May, covering waterwise landscaping and water conservation. The Alpine Water Citizen Advisory Committee meets next on Thursday, Sept. 24, at 6 p.m.