Here's an article about what will happen if the Great Salt Lake dries up



"Since white people came into the valley [in the 1840s], we have a history of dumping into the lake. All that is going to become airborne,” Baxter said. “The heavy metals that are there and other pollutants are likely going to be a piece of that dust storm.”

"His research team consolidated these samples into 122 batches, each representing 16 square kilometers of dry lakebed, then analyzed them for 53 elements. The team found troubling concentrations of nine heavy metals, including arsenic, cobalt, antimony, lithium, manganese, vanadium and zirconium, copper and lanthanum. High concentrations of these and other metals occurred in areas associated with discharges connected with industry, wastewater treatment and agriculture."