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Brandee and Michael Wing put up their own sign on Sandy Beach at Utah Lake to warn people of the fatal toxins in the water due to harmful algal blooms. They put up the sign after their dog Toby died Monday, Aug. 28, 2023, following a visit to the lake on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023.

Courtesy Brandee Wing

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Toby, the dog who passed away on Monday, Aug. 28, 2023, from the harmful algal blooms at Utah lake, is pictured catching a fish at Deer Creek five year ago.

Courtesy Brandee Wing

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The Utah County Health Department posted extra warning signs near another access point at Sandy Beach at Utah Lake to tell recreators to avoid swimming and keep their animals out of the water. The extra signs were posted on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023, after a dog died from the harmful algal blooms present in all of Utah Lake.

Courtesy Brandee Wing

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Michael and Brandee Wing's dog Toby died Monday, Aug. 28, 2023, after a trip to Sandy Beach along Utah Lake.

Courtesy Brandee Wing

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Brandee and Michael Wing lost their dog Toby after a family outing last Saturday to Sandy Beach along Utah Lake with their 3-year-old daughter, Paitynn. After seeing that Sandy Beach had turned into “muck” since they had last been there four years ago, they looked for shells and walked along the shoreline. While the water looked full of the muck and the sludge that is usually at the bottom of Utah Lake, Michael Wing said they did not see any signs of visible algae in the water.

Brandee Wing went into the water for a short time, but Michael said he and Paitynn stayed out of the water. He told the Daily Herald there was a sign in the west corner of the parking lot educating people about algal blooms, but he couldn’t recall seeing a warning sign or other notification telling visitors to stay away from the water. There also was not a sign where they accessed the lake. The grieving Springville pet owners said if there had been visible warning signs about swimming, they would have not stayed at the beach.

Aislynn Tolman-Hill, public information officer for the Utah County Health Department, said there were eight permanent signs installed in 2019 around common access points for Utah Lake that educate about the harmful algal blooms in Utah Lake. Additionally, she added, the signs are updated with new warning markers within 24 to 48 hours anytime water samples test positive for the harmful blooms. When a worker for the health department went to Sandy Beach on Tuesday after Toby died, she said, they confirmed there was a warning advisory sign attached to the permanent sign.

Tolman-Hill did note that in 2019 there were not as many access points to Utah Lake. In recent years, a new parking lot was constructed for the north area of Sandy Beach, which leads to an access point further away from the permanent sign located on the far west end. This new access point is where the Wing family parked and went down to the lake.

The family outing was on Saturday, but it was not until Monday evening that Toby began showing signs of being sick, the Wings say. Around 6 p.m., Toby started throwing up and did not stop. He threw up at least five or six times before Brandee took him to a vet in Orem, Michael said. Around 8:40 p.m., she called Michael to tell him how expensive it was going to be to treat Toby, to which he said he replied, “I don’t care, just get him fixed. Get him feeling better.”

After the phone call, Michael went back to sleep because he had work soon. Less than 30 minutes later, Brandee called to tell him Toby had passed away while at the vet.

Toby would have been 9 years old in January. Michael Wing said Toby has swam in Utah Lake every summer since he was a puppy. He fishes often on Utah Lake and would almost always take his dogs. The Wing said they were not aware of the warning advisory over the entire lake.

Michael said he does not get on social media often, so he relies on physical signs when he is recreating to know if there is a danger. “If there was a sign up, I would have never gotten out of the truck,” he said.

Michael said if the water is dangerous enough to kill a dog, there needs to be more signs in place that can be seen from all access points, telling people to keep their animals and themselves out of the water.

He recalled that while they were at the beach, Toby did walk up to the water to get a drink. When he saw Toby do this, he yelled and told Toby came back, but the dog did end up drinking some of the water. They also had their smaller dog with them, who Michael said got more wet than Toby but did not get sick.

Brandee and Michael Wing have placed their own sign near the pathway where they accessed the lake to warn people that the water is toxic. After reporting that Toby had gotten sick and passed away from the lake water, the Utah County Health Department posted additional warning signs on the fence that said “no swimming.”

All of Utah Lake has been under a warning advisory due to the harmful algal blooms since Aug. 15. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality advises to avoid swimming or wading in the water and to avoid drinking the water, but said that boating and fishing is OK as long as fish are cleaned thoroughly.

But Michael Wing said more should have been done. “They tested a week ago and they knew how bad it was,” he said. “Why didn’t they put it up then?”

The Wing family is using the hashtag #tobytough to raise awareness of the danger of Utah Lake. They are trying to get the word out to prevent what happened to Toby from happening to another animal or a human due to the algal blooms in the lake.

“We’re not used to not having him. I mean, he was always with us everywhere we went. He slept with my little daughter ever since she was born,” Michael Wing said. He also would take Toby with him to the grocery store, to the gas station and everywhere else he went unless dogs were not allowed. He would put Toby in the back of his pickup truck and have him tag along.

“Just like two nights ago, my daughter’s like, ‘Oh, this will be the first night that I have to sleep all by myself without my dog,'” Wing said.

“I’m frustrated, I’m (angry). If they know about it, why not have the signs up? Why not tell people about it, have (warnings) more often? They said they had them (signs) at the boat harbors, but the lake is so big. They have a whole bunch of access (points). They could have put up more signs. It’s just really frustrating; if it’s that bad then shut the lake down.”

Tolman-Hill explained that more signs have not been added because of the cost, which she said has risen steeply. In 2019, when the eight permanent signs were installed, they each cost $2,000, she said, but if they installed the same sort of permanent signs today, they would be closer to $5,000 or $8,000.

“We love the idea and are very, very much in support of doing additional signage,” Tolman-Hill said. “Our question is always going to be who’s going to fund it?”

To create the permanent signs, the health department worked with the state to design them in a way that would be the most time- and cost-efficient while also educating residents about the algae. They came up with the permanent signs that are now in place and are updated with warning or danger signs according to the water quality.

While the county had the help of the state in 2019, Tolman-Hill said they do not receive funding from the state to place more signs or to change the signs that are now in place.

“We actually place the warning signs really as more of a courtesy,” she said. “It’s something that we help with just to kind of be a good neighbor to do with what we can. But honestly, we lose funding, we lose staff time on it.”

She explained that if levels of toxins do get high enough that the lake enters the danger advisory or needs to be shut down, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services will work with the county health department to shut down the lake because it then becomes more of a “public health authority issue.” However, Utah Lake has not been at levels of toxins that high since 2017.

She explained the advisories are put in place based on the levels and types of toxins that are present in the lake when it is sampled. It is not based on animals’ or humans’ health or contamination in relation to the algae in the lake. To see how the toxins are measured and what levels require a danger advisory, visit https://deq.utah.gov.

Tolman-Hill said when a pet or a family member becomes ill from the toxins in the lake, “we’re always very sad and we feel for them.”

The investigation into the cause of Toby’s death is ongoing and is not confirmed to be caused by the algal bloom in the lake, said Ashley Sumner, DEQ director of communications. However, Brandee Wing said in a message to the Daily Herald, “There will be no testing because it falls on Me to do the testing; seven to eight hundred dollars for their MISTAKE.”

Michael Wing said he advises that even if people have to go on social media to do so, they should check the water quality before going to Utah Lake. The DEQ posts updates its website after each weekly sample of Utah Lake water.

The DEQ also posts updates and advisories on its Instagram @utahdeq.

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