This week, I'm listening to America with Clay Jenkinson, the death of Great Salt Lake.

My interview with Scott Baxter, the Henry David Thoreau of Great Salt Lake, about the possibility

that the lake will die well before it dries up entirely.

Mr. Baxter has spent the last decades of his life monitoring the lake as its levels

diminish thanks to overallocation and more recently the prolonged drought in the American

West.

With his future son-in-law, Baxter circumnavigated the lake several years ago by specially

built kayaks.

The toxic dust that is exposed by declining lake levels represents a respiratory problem

for the citizens of Utah that does find its way to the snowfields in the mountains east

of Salt Lake City, damaging the ski industry and causing the snowpack to melt sooner than

ever before.

I ask Scott Baxter how the world will react if Great Salt Lake dies and how he will grieve

the passing of this unique inland sea.

All that and more on this week's Listing to America.

Hello everyone and welcome to this special edition of Listing to America with Clay Jenkinson.

On my recent trip to the Four Corners area, Canyon Country and the Colorado River, I had

the good fortune to interview Mr. Scott Baxter of Salt Lake City.

Mr. Baxter could almost be regarded as the Thoreau of Great Salt Lake.

Scott has been concerned for a long time with the drop in the level of the lake.

In fact, unless there's a refreshing, the lake could die.

That follows are some of the highlights of the two and a half hour interview I conducted

...