On a recent Saturday in Orem, it was sunny and warmer than usual, but the Cardons were indoors, surrounded by cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. As they cleared shelves and put away family photos, they spoke, sometimes tearfully, about the decision they slowly revealed to friends and neighbors.
When the school year ends, the family of six leaves for Kansas City.
This is something they never wanted to do, but Adrian and Jared Cardone are worried. Three of their four children strict asthma. When you get sick in the winter, you need supplemental oxygen, and when there’s smoke from wildfires, you don’t have the courage to go outside.
Now, the family is focusing on a new hazard: dust from the dry Great Salt Lake, which contains heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and lithium. They worry about what the winds will do to their neighborhood, an hour’s drive from the south coast, and how sandstorms will complicate respiratory illnesses for children.
“It’s the health of our kids. I just don’t want to roll the dice,” Adrian Kardon said.
Adrian Cardon and his children Graham, 5, Elliot, 12, and Claire, 9, at their home in Orem on Saturday, February 28, 2026. (Photo by Spencer Heaps of Utah News-Dispatch)
With climate change at the forefront of decision-making, the Cardons are among Utahns considering the health of their lakes as they plan for the future.
In a statewide survey of 800 Utahns in 2024, Utah State University researchers found that nearly a quarter considered lake-related risks in their family planning process. Additionally, 35% said they had considered relocating to some extent due to the drying of the lake. Qualitative research also sheds light.
“People are very concerned about the health risks, especially for children and pregnant people, and the effects on the developing fetus in the womb,” said Stacia Rider, an assistant professor of sociology at the university.
In a series of small focus groups conducted by Ryder et al. in 2024 and 2025, participants drew images of themselves and illustrated the parts of their bodies affected by the lake. Participants drew a red “X” over the uterus on their bodies and a broken heart on their chests.
“As I was explaining it to her, she said, ‘I know how bad air quality can have long-term and devastating effects, even if I’m healthy in every sense of the word,'” Ryder recalled.
Ryder said she worries that her daughter, now just 1 year old, will develop asthma or another respiratory disease while growing up in Ogden.
“I thought about it a lot during my pregnancy, and I still think about it,” Ryder said.
The lake plays an important role in sustaining communities along the Wasatch Front in northern Utah, stimulating the state’s economy, and maintaining the balance of our natural environment. Decades of drought, high temperatures, climate change, and diversion of water for agriculture, cities, and industry have all combined to make the region drier.
Its southern arm fell to record lows in 2022, and although it has rebounded after historic snowfall, Utah’s snowpack is at an all-time low, dropping to dangerous levels. State leaders and even President Donald Trump have pledged to make the lake the first fully restored terminal salt lake in history.
Utah State University assistant professor of sociology Dr. Stacia Ryder holds her 1-year-old daughter at her home in Ogden on Thursday, January 22, 2026. (Photo by Spencer Heaps of Utah News Dispatch)
Joel Ferry, Executive Director, Utah Department of Natural Resources; I warned you four years ago that without dramatic action,Utah had a “potential environmental nuclear bomb.”
The state hastily poured in $40 million. conservation trust An outside group has pledged $200 million in 2023. Utah provides farmers with irrigation upgrades and Measure your home’s outdoor water usage. It also revamped the “use it or lose it” policy that penalized farmers for the distribution of water sent downstream, and codified the conservation of such species as “beneficial use.”
Mr Ferry said the triage phase had ended and targeted treatment had begun, with a system that would help farmers receive compensation for keeping their fields dry.
“We’ve taken important steps, but we know we’re not done yet,” Ferry told Utah News-Dispatch. “You’ll end up covering those dusty areas.”
The shores of the Great Salt Lake on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at Great Salt Lake State Park near Magna. (Photo by Spencer Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Ferry acknowledges that Utahns like the Cardons are in a holding pattern until new projects come to fruition.
“These are very difficult decisions that families have to make individually,” Ferry said, recalling her own experience as a child with asthma.
“I remember waking up and not being able to breathe,” he said. “That fear, the fear it brings to someone, is real.”
When Congress adjourned in March, Republican leaders touted their cause. Efforts that snowball To save the lake, they pointed out, they started by giving the state government the green light in January. Purchase a magnesium factory on the coast It ended with $60 million earned along the way. federal government. During these milestones, President Trump was motivated to move certain conservation bills through the legislative process.
“More could be done,” said Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Layton). “But it’s a lot.”
Senate leadership, including Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Layton, R-Centre) and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla (D-Salt Lake City, R-Centre) gather during media availability with Senate leadership at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on the first day of Congress, Tuesday, January 20, 2026. (Photo by Spencer Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The Cardons are skeptical that Utah’s leaders will do whatever it takes to save the lake. They said the state’s rapid growth is a concern and so are its efforts. push back against the federal government air Pollution standards.
“I feel like it’s hard to get a clear answer: Do I need to retire? If I do, at what point do I have to retire? How bad does it have to get?” Adrian Kardon said.
Not only do they want to alleviate their children’s asthma symptoms, but they also want to raise their children in areas that are less affected by climate change and have abundant water for years to come.
Elliott, 12, said he believes the lake could have been protected a while ago, but the state was slow to act.
“I think some people understand the consequences, but they just want to keep going because they don’t want to lose their money or their home,” he told Utah News-Dispatch.
Five-year-old Graham says when the air is thick with pollution, “It’s like peanuts!” (He is allergic.)
Alyssa May, a friend of the Cardones and a member of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, said one of the group’s members recently moved out of state for the same reason.
Graham Cardon, 5, sits at the kitchen table at his home in Orem on Saturday, February 28, 2026. (Photo by Spencer Heaps for Utah News-Dispatch)
Gov. Spencer Cox set an ambitious goal of restoring the lake to peak condition for the 2034 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, calling for an additional 800,000 acre-feet of water each year. From 2021 to 2025, conservation efforts are halfway through the new annual goal. total 400,000 acre-feet — Sent To the Great Salt Lake.
“They never got off the ground,” said Brian Mench, president of Utah Health and Environmental Physicians and a retired anesthesiologist.
Moench is particularly concerned about residues from mining, pesticides, nuclear testing, eternal chemicals, and particulate matter that even weak winds can pick up from the lakebed.
“All the harmful by-products of modern civilization are embedded in its dust,” he says.
Fortunately, about three-quarters of the lake is covered with salt; clay not the crust, dust, said Kevin Perry, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah.
“Right now it’s saving us,” Perry told Utah News-Dispatch in February. Although he is encouraged by the “huge harvest” on the state’s water policy, he remains primarily concerned about day-to-day pollution. like Winter’s poor air and wildfire smoke combine into summer to create intermittent storms on the lakebed.
Still, he wants answers. Researchers have identified other health problems caused by dry saline lakes. Discovering decline in lung function in children It sucks in dust from the Salton Sea in Southern California. Perry said he hasn’t seen similar action in Utah and has pressed the state to thoroughly investigate and monitor dust in 2022.
“I tried really hard to answer those questions, because I don’t know the answers,” he said.
The state has set aside $1 million for a new dust monitoring network to detect, capture and analyze what blows into communities. Workers are currently installing equipment, and 10 monitors are expected to be operational by the end of July, said Zach Anderrud, a dust scientist and Utah Air Service coordinator.
To date, there is no published data on the concentrations of heavy metals in the dust that falls in the Wasatch Front region, and there are no guidelines for how exposure to particles in the afternoon, for example, might affect a person’s shortcomings, shortcomings, or shortcomings, Anderd said. long-term health. He and a state working group are developing guidelines, with the first set expected to be finalized within the next four months.
Jared Cardon and Adrian Cardon fill shipping containers at their home in Orem on Saturday, February 28, 2026. (Photo by Spencer Heaps of Utah News-Dispatch)
In Orem, the Cardone family acknowledges that they are making the decision to move on from a place of privilege. They both work from home, he as a filmmaker and she in advertising. They said they hope to one day look back and realize they could have stayed here instead of returning to their home state of Kansas.
“This is my new best-case scenario: Utah got its act together,” Jared Cardon said. “They have preserved this wonderful resource.”
Adrian Cardon said packing boxes sometimes feels like Chicken Little warning the sky is falling, and other times it feels like being the first family to escape a burning building.
“If it’s the former, I’d feel a little silly,” she said in a text message later that day. “If it’s the latter, I think it would be a good idea to set off the fire alarm when you go out.”
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