David Condos
Southern Utah ReporterEmail: dcondos@kuer.org
David Condos is KUER’s southern Utah reporter based in St. George. He covers the dynamics shaping life in communities across the southern part of the state with a focus on environmental issues. His reporting has earned several prestigious honors, including three National Edward R. Murrow awards, six Public Media Journalists Association awards and seven Regional Edward R. Murrow awards. His radio stories have also regularly aired on NPR’s national programs Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Here & Now. Prior to joining KUER, Condos spent two and a half years covering rural Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. He grew up in Nebraska, Colorado and Illinois and graduated from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Utah’s growing fast, and that’s having a big domino effect on housing development and farming. But it could also lead to a silver lining for the state’s water supply. -
Utah communities from Washington County to the Wasatch Front face some of the nation’s highest risk for wildfires. As the Los Angeles fires show, the off-season for wildfires is disappearing, but there are things Utahns can do to prepare. -
There was little respite from the heat in Utah last year, even with overnight lows. Salt Lake City, Bountiful, Provo and Kanab all saw their warmest minimum temperatures on record, too. -
Bad air quality from inversions is a common winter occurrence in the Salt Lake Valley. But it’s not the only place in Utah that experiences these meteorological events. -
Rural recycling is a challenge and it comes down to money and demand. Even southwest Utah’s largest city has to cross state lines to give its milk jugs and tin cans a new life. -
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the nationwide Christmas Bird Count. The data volunteers gather in Utah helps scientists understand how climate change and other factors threaten bird habitats. -
Utah is launching a new multimillion-dollar program that pays farmers to leave their irrigation water in the Colorado River — and tracks where that saved water ends up. -
Some schools, parks and homes in St. George still use drinking water to water lawns. As the fast-growing desert community looks to stretch supplies, it’s connecting more of them to secondary water. -
Water conservation is vital to southwest Utah’s future and removing irrigated grass at many of its golf courses would be a big step toward stretching that supply. But efforts have struggled to gain traction. -
In a dry state like Utah, leaders want to know exactly how much water leaves the state. Historically, however, there hasn’t been much data about the water that evaporates into the air. The Utah Flux Network aims to change that. -
Farm irrigation uses a lot of water across the West. In one Utah community, however, farmers already grow crops without any irrigation. It might seem like an answer to the state's water woes, but the reality is not so simple. -
Scientists expect La Niña to start by the end of this year. That could fuel a drier-than-normal winter and spell trouble for Utah drought and snowmelt going into 2025.
