Opinions vary as to what threat contaminants pose even as major studies continue

On many spring days, the Great Salt Lake is an inviting sight, the azure blue of the water blending into a cloudless sky. But how pristine is North America’s largest body of salt water? Can you swim in it? Can you eat foods associated with it? What if the water gets in your mouth?

Those are open-ended questions. State water quality officials and environmentalists admit there are contaminants in the Great Salt Lake that could be harmful, but opinions vary as to how dangerous they are and what risks they pose.

John Whitehead, an assistant director of the Utah Division of Water Quality within the Department of Environmental Quality, said mercury and selenium have been two issues of concern at the lake. But that doesn’t mean everyone who’s taken a dip in the brackish waters has reason to worry.

“At this point, we’re not aware of a health issue [to humans] from contact with the water,” Whitehead said.

Still, Jeff Salt, director of the Great Salt Lake Water Keepers, an environmental organization formerly called Great Salt Lakekeeper, said he’s cautious.

“I’ve swam and played in the Great Salt Lake but I’m cautious about that because I believe, being that the lake is in a terminal basin, it’s receiving all of the pollution from the entire watershed,” he said. “Everything is flowing down and ending up in the lake, either through the Bear River, Weber River, or Jordan River — or pollution that’s been discharged directly into the lake by companies like Kennecott and US Magnesium.”

Mercury

Salt said mercury is probably the most dangerous pollutant known to be in the Great Salt Lake, and concentrations of total mercury compounds and methylmercury are higher there than in any other body of water in the United States. Methylmercury, the most common organic mercury compound, is the form of mercury most toxic to humans and wildlife, attacking the neurological system. As a potent neurotoxin, it can affect vision, speech and walking ability, and leads to death in cases of high exposure.

“We know that we have high mercury levels in the Great Salt Lake,” Whitehead agreed. “Those are measured and known.”

A multi-agency project between the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, state Division of Wildlife Resources, state Division of Water Quality, Utah State University and the U.S. Geological Survey launched in 2007 is the first comprehensive mercury study ever done at the lake, according to Jodi Gardberg, Great Salt Lake Watershed coordinator with the Division of Water Quality.

“We’re studying what concentrations of methylmercury are in the sediment, soil, brine shrimp — all up through the ecosystem to the birds because methylmercury bioaccumulates in the ecosystem,” Gardberg said.

Sampling started last spring and ended at the end of last year. Samples were sent to the USGS Mercury Research Laboratory in Wisconsin, and results are now starting to come in.

Salt said methylmercury gets ingested by algae, then brine shrimp feed on the algae, then migratory birds feed on the brine shrimp.

“What happens is methylmercury moves up the food chain,” he said. “As it moves up it increases in concentration and becomes more and more toxic. So the larger the animal, the higher the dose of methylmercury.”

High mercury levels have been found in three kinds of ducks that are found in marshes of the Great Salt Lake. The common goldeneye, cinnamon teal and northern shoveler are on the Utah Waterfowl Advisory consumption advisory list because of mercury contamination.

“Mercury is not necessarily a problem for people swimming in the Great Salt Lake,” Salt said. “You have to ingest it through breathing it or swallowing it for it to be a problem. I’m a little skittish [around the Great Salt Lake] but it’s not necessarily going to hurt me if I go swimming or boating in the lake.”

Gardberg said the levels of mercury in the water aren’t a hazard for people recreating in the lake.

However, consuming products from the lake could pose a real danger, according to Salt.

“My concern, even though it hasn’t been proven or scientifically studied, is that we are contributing to mercury contamination in our own food supply by selling brine shrimp eggs [from the Great Salt Lake] with methylmercury,” Salt said. “With bioaccumulation, people are getting elevated doses just from eating farm-fed fish products relying on the brine shrimp eggs as food. So we need to look at that and see if it’s a problem or not.”

Salt believes millions of dollars need to be put into research to find out where exactly the mercury is coming from and how it’s affecting the lake and surrounding watershed. He said mercury evaporates very easily into the atmosphere and can travel for long times and great distances before it settles to ground — properties that make identifying the exact sources of contamination difficult.

He added that naturally occurring sources of mercury include volcanic eruptions, wildfires and evaporations from oceans. Human-caused sources include hazardous waste incinerators, mining and smelting operations, coal-fired power plants, and cement plants.

The mercury work group studying mercury at the lake is hoping to quantify its sources and estimate the potential for rehabilitation in places with high mercury levels.

Officials say it’s hard to say definitively where the mercury could have come from — naturally, or from industrial sources. Some experts theorize it could be from Nevada gold mines, which have recently been cleaned up, as well as coal-fired power plants.

Salt said so little money has been allocated to this research that it makes it difficult to make significant headway.

“What the state has done over the last four years is good, but it’s really not, in my mind, enough,” he said.

Selenium

Whitehead said selenium, a naturally occurring mineral, has also been a concern. However, a multi-year, multi-million-dollar study completed on the issue last year dispelled some of those fears.

“The outcome of that is we don’t think the lake is polluted at dangerous levels, but we have set up a water quality standard to evaluate how the lake is doing and if it exceeds that standard to take some serious actions,” he said.

The open water selenium standard has been approved on the state level at 12.5 parts per million and is now awaiting EPA approval. It is a tissue-based standard, based on the concentration of selenium in waterfowl eggs.

Bill Moellmer, an environmental scientist with the Division of Water Quality, said selenium is naturally occurring and the selenium in the Great Salt Lake is exceedingly low.

Salt said there are elevated levels of selenium in the Great Salt Lake, although he agreed those aren’t dangerous to humans at present levels. He said the contamination poses more of a threat to wildlife.

“With wildlife, they are ingesting this and it’s being found in the livers of migratory birds — the eared grebes, especially certain ducks,” he said, adding the spread of that contamination could be a global concern. “The Great Salt Lake is an important global wildlife refuge. It’s an important stopover in the flyway for birds traveling all the way from Argentina up to Alaska.”

Salt added that in addition to mercury and selenium in the Great Salt Lake, he also has concerns with chemicals that are in household products and pharmaceuticals that aren’t being fully treated at water treatment plants. Those chemicals, he said, are entering waterways, ultimately ending up at the lake. In addition, he’s concerned about nonpoint source pollution — stormwater from gutters, parking lots, driveways, rooftops and agricultural operations — that is reaching the Great Salt Lake.

“That’s probably now the single largest source of pollution to the Great Salt Lake — nonpoint source pollution,” he said.

Salt said educating people about what they can do to reduce their impact on the lake is a key to stopping further water quality problems.

“That’s the single best thing people can do to prevent the Great Salt Lake from becoming polluted — to take household hazardous waste to a designated center,” he said.

While Salt said there’s probably no way of cleaning up the pollution already in the Great Salt Lake, the objective of his organization is to try to prevent future pollution from ever reaching the lake.

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com