Interview: Why a dry Chilean lagoon matters to the future of the Great Salt Lake

Details: By Caroline Ballard; Category: KUER; April 22, 2022

Listen at kuer.org

Horses graze on the former Lake Aculeo southwest of Santiago, Chile, in January 2021. The lake completely dried up in May 2018 due to drought, overpumping of groundwater, rapid population growth and agricultural as well as urban diversions. It serves as a cautionary tale for the dwindling Great Salt Lake.

KUER's Caroline Ballard interviews Will Munger from Utah State University and Amy Joi O'Donoghue of the Deseret News about the connections between Great Salt Lake and a dry lagoon in Chile.

Caroline Ballard

KUER All Things Considered Host

Caroline Ballard is a central Virginia native and a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School. Ever since 2014 – to her delight and the dismay of her East Coast family and friends – she has steadily moved further west. For five years she served as Morning Edition host at Wyoming Public Radio, as well as its newsroom editor and host of the podcast HumaNature. She earned two PRNDI (Public Radio News Directors Inc.) awards for Best Podcast for her work as lead producer on episodes of the show. In 2016, her reporting project Women Run the West, which examined the representation of women in western politics, was selected to be a part of the first NPR Story Lab. Caroline became KUER’s All Things Considered host in August 2019. When she’s not behind the mic, you can find her spending time with her husband and her rescue pup Scrappy, and cooking recipes that are far too complicated for her skill level.