A dust event near Saltair over the weekend highlights how dust is still flying off the Great Salt Lake despite its recent gains, a local environmental group says. … With 8.7 inches of snow-water equivalent still left in the mountains within the lake’s basin, nearly half of its peak this year, the lake could make some additional gains, depending on how much of that water ends up in it. Yet despite its gains, Grow the Flow points out that it remains only about 40% full by volume, leaving hundreds of square miles of lakebed exposed. A cold front that pushed through the region on Sunday visibly kicked up dust, which is often deposited in nearby communities. That’s a problem because — as documented in a Great Salt Lake Strike Team report earlier this year — the dust can create a “health hazard” from increases in particulate matter concentrations, as well as “chronic exposures to carcinogenic elements such as arsenic.”