The Salton Sea should be allowed to die its natural death. Any comparison between it and the Owens Lake is just a scare tactic put out there to by people who hope to profit from what will be a huge boondoggle if any government money is spent to "Save" the Salton Sea.
If there were going to be huge dust clouds like those in the Owens Dry Lake they would already be happening because the ancient Lake Cahuilla which preceded the Salton Sea was 26 times larger than the Sea and no such dust clouds happened when it dried up. Phoenix suffers such dust storms but not the Coachella Valley. Also, the salinity of the Sea will create a crust similar to what existed before the accident that created the Sea took place. It was a salt flat that was mined for salt and no record of giant dust storms were ever reported. I've never heard of such event at the Great Salt Lake Salt Flats or the Dead Sea, have you?
And, I'm not worried about the birds because they can fly after all and will find somewhere else to nest. After all, the did it before the Sea came into being.
The whole Save the Sea movement started with some of Sonny Bono's key contributors who saw it as a huge avenue to make billions of dollars in government contracts Saving the Sea. Now, they've continued their efforts with Mary Bono Mack at the forefront of the this potential multi-billion dollar ripoff of taxpayers.
The Salton Sea doesn't need to be saved. It needs to die.