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RadioWest

Great Salt Lake and the Politics of Patience

RadioWest

KUER

Society & Culture

4.8740 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A recent article co-published by The New York Times and The Salt Lake Tribune raises the question of whether or not, as Great Salt Lake continues to dry up, the political will to save the lake is likewise evaporating. If so, what can be done to reinvigorate it?

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for the Radio West podcast comes from Harmon's Grocery, committed to excellent service and friendly smiles.

0:06.6

Your food is our passion.

0:15.7

Earlier this month, the reporter Leah Larson wrote a piece for the Salt Lake Tribune in New York Times,

0:25.8

asking whether Utah's leaders had lost interest in the Great Salt Lake. Now, they were definitely paying attention in 2022 when the lake hit its all-time low point. And for the next

0:31.3

few years, they passed legislation and committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the crisis.

0:36.7

But then came a couple of wet years, one really wet year.

0:40.8

And while that helped stabilize the lake's level, advocates say it may have given leaders

0:45.9

a false sense of security and made them ease up just when the momentum to make a difference

0:51.3

was starting to build.

0:53.4

Bonnie Baxter is a microbiologist who studies the lake, and she told us she's also noticed

0:58.9

an attitude shift among certain political leaders, people like state representative Casey Snyder.

1:05.3

Baxter says these days they seem less interested in what scientists like her have to say

1:10.8

or in facing those hard truths about the lake's dire future.

1:15.7

We have a Great Salt Lake Issues Forum every couple of years

1:19.7

that Friends of Great Salt Lake puts together.

1:22.3

And it's quite a community gathering of people who care about the lake

1:26.3

or work on the lake or are involved in making policies that impact the lake.

1:31.2

Good morning.

1:32.4

And at the last one...

1:34.8

I really appreciate your interest.

1:36.4

There was a legislative panel.

1:39.0

Okay.

...

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