Note to readers •This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
The growing dust problem posed by the drying Great Salt Lake isn’t just a threat to air quality. New research shows that the toxic metals blowing from its exposed lakebed may be working their way into our food, too.
Scientists at Utah State University published a study this month in which they collected dust from Farmington Bay and applied it to cabbage plants grown in a greenhouse. After two applications, plant tissue absorbed metals and metalloids from the dust, including arsenic, sodium and uranium. Other contaminants, like lead, can collect on the leaves. Those pollutants occur naturally in the Great Salt Lake but also stem from past industrial activity…